


Prophecy

by GenericUsername01



Series: Nonbinary Spock fics [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Destiny, Heavy Angst, Other, Pining Spock, Sort Of, Soulmates, Tarsus IV, Transphobia, agender spock - Freeform, enbyphobia, in which Jim tries very hard not to fall in love with Spock and fails miserably, nonbinary Spock, trans girl kirk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-23 13:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenericUsername01/pseuds/GenericUsername01
Summary: Spock Prime is captured and killed empathically shortly after crossing through the wormhole, causing his katra to disintegrate and send a flash of his memories out across the galaxy, memories of the future.James T. Kirk was born to be a hero and the whole universe knows it. The only question is, how do they make sure she becomes what she’s supposed to be?





	1. T’Lis

**Author's Note:**

> Sarek is sort of a dick at the beginning but he gets better later on. I’m cis, so if I screw up majorly, please correct me so I can fix it as soon as possible.
> 
> Mesakh-guvik = Vulcan word for transgender

It went out across the galaxy in a second, in flashes. It wasn’t everything. But it was more than enough.  
  
A hero named James Kirk, savior of 230,000,000 on Veridian IV, a man who prevented multiple wars, who risked everything and saved his crew more than once, who discovered time travel and saved the billions upon billions living on Earth, making Veridian IV look like a drop in the bucket. One of the most decorated heroes Starfleet would ever have.  
  
Flashes. It was all flashes, from the perspective of his first officer, his bondmate, his t’hy’la. They saw Jim’s smiles and his gentle, obvious affection.  
  
Whales on a spaceship. Drinking ale with Klingons, trying to make small talk. A swordfight, hundreds of phaserfights and fistfights, even some ancient gunfights and battles fought with bows and arrows.  
  
Vulcan kisses in the nooks of engineering. Soft looks across the bridge. Something indiscernibly ancient and primeval on the sands of Vulcan. A human wedding in San Francisco, the entire crew present.  
  
A country doctor who loved to tease and complain. An engineer who wore a kilt on occasion. Music on a lyre, a beautiful woman singing. Discussing science with an over-excited kid fresh from the Academy. A particularly sarcastic helmsman.  
  
A paradise planet turned lethal. Time travel. Planets that resembled something straight out of Earth’s history. Future technology like never seen before. The Preservers. Blind panic. Tholians. Crushing grief. Kodos. Pure rage.  
  
A radiation chamber, death, life, madness.  
  
A sense of grief that was a lot more permanent and cut deep like a knife.  
  
And then it was over.  
  
Spock’s life flashed before his eyes and the eyes of the entire galaxy in the span of 1.038 seconds as his katra disintegrated.

* * *

T’Lis didn’t know why she did it, she just knew she had to.  
  
It was perhaps illogical. She would never admit it.  
  
She came home from school with her previously long, silky black hair cut short in jagged, feathery layers. It was a poor approximation of Vulcan males’ hairstyles, uneven and sticking out in all directions.  
  
It was the best she could do using safety scissors and no mirror.  
  
Her mother gasped and brought a hand to her mouth when she saw her.  
  
Sarek immediately set down his padd, looking thunderous. “T’Lis. What has been done to your hair?”  
  
“Oh sweetie, was it the boys at school?” Amanda asked.  
  
“Negative. I cut it myself,” she said, with as much courage as she could muster at seven years old. She met her father’s not-glare head on, refusing to back down.  
  
“Why have you done this?”  
  
“I wish to wear my hair in the style of Vulcan males.”  
  
“Explain.”  
  
“There is nothing to explain. My hair needed to be cut and there was a 79.41% chance you would deny me permission, so I did it myself.”  
  
“Your hair did not need to be cut. There was nothing wrong with the way it was styled earlier. You are a female, and your hair marked you as such.”  
  
“I do not wish to be marked as such.”  
“What are you saying?”  
“I do not wish to present myself as a female. It is illogical to me.”  
  
“Explain.”  
  
“I am not female in my katra. I can feel it.”

“Are you male, then?”  
  
“I… I do not know.”  
  
“You must be something, T’Lis.”  
  
She bit her lip, then caught herself and stopped immediately, suppressing the human gesture.  
  
“This behavior is illogical. You cannot and should not rely on mere feelings to determine such an important matter.”  
  
“Sarek—“ Amanda started.  
  
“It is good to know one’s katra,” T’Lis insisted.  
  
“But you do not know your katra. You have said yourself that you are not sure if you are male. If you are not to be male and you are not to be female, then what are you to be?”  
“On Earth,” Amanda interrupted. “There are people, humans, who don’t identify as either male or female. And that’s okay.”

* * *

Amanda cut her hair for her, trimming it and coaxing it into a more properly Vulcan style, smooth and straight and just like the boys she went to school with.  
  
She tried her hardest not to smile but it slipped through a bit and Amanda returned the gesture in mirror, kissing her atop her head.

* * *

“The human at the store expressed surprise that you were a female,” T’Lis said, sitting on Michael’s bed.  
  
She nodded. “On Earth, the name ‘Michael’ is typically given to boys, not girls.”  
  
“Does it bother you?”  
  
“Not really. I think it suits me,” she said. She looked at her little sister, with her curious human eyes and her hair styled like a boy’s. Vulcan robes were Vulcan robes, and school dresses were unisex, so now the child was frequently mistaken for a boy.  
  
She seemed to react to that in much the same way she reacted to being perceived as a girl, though with slightly more toleration.  
  
Michael didn’t understand what T’Lis was thinking. What she was feeling. She doubted she ever would. But she was determined that that would change nothing, and no matter what, T’Lis would always have the support of her big sister.  
  
“What about you? Do you like your name?” she asked.  
  
“I… No,” T’Lis said. “It is illogical. But I do not—I am not a T’Lis.”  
  
Michael smiled gently. “What would you like your name to be?”  
  
“I do not know. I do not want it to be female, however. It is illogical for me to be perceived as such when I am not.”

* * *

Michael helped her pick out a name.  
  
She compiled a list of famous male Vulcan philosophers and scientists, writing alongside each name what they were specifically known for.  
  
T’Lis went through the list and narrowed it down to two, Selek or Spock.  
  
“What was Selek known for?” she asked. Michael looked through her notes.  
  
“He was the astronomer who first discovered Sol.”  
  
“And Spock?”  
  
“A philosopher. Surakian, from Vulcan’s ninth century. He’s most famous for coining the saying: ‘Know thyself and follow thy true path. There is no other way to be.’”  
  
Spock’s eyes lit up.

* * *

Stonn accepted their preliminary bond with obvious distaste. His schoolmates were of a similar mind.  
  
“It is illogical for you to dress as male and use a male name yet insist that you are not male. If you are mesakh-guvik, then simply admit it.”  
  
“I am mesakh-guvik. I have never attempted to hide that. I am neither male nor female. That is an acceptable way of being on Earth.”  
  
Stonn’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “So you have an Earth gender?”  
  
“Indeed.”  
  
“An Earth gender and an Earth mother. You are practically an Earth girl.”  
  
“I am not a girl, and I am ashamed of neither my mother nor my gender.”  
  
“You should be. You are neither Vulcan nor Terran, neither male nor female. You are nothing and no one. A non-being. You are unsuitable as a mate.”

* * *

The school called Amanda following the fight.  
  
Spock sat primly in the principal’s office. She walked over to the trashcan and spat out one of her baby teeth, along with a stream of blood. The secretary looked on in horror.  
  
Vulcans do not have baby teeth. Spock does. Sarek behaved quite irrationally when she lost the first one, especially given how completely unconcerned Amanda was by it.  
  
She resumed her seat and pressed an ice pack to her temple. The nurse had run a dermal regenerator all over her, but that did nothing to eliminate the pain or swelling.  
  
Amanda burst into the principal’s office and made a beeline for her child. “Spock!” She threw her arms around her in a tight hug.  
  
“Hello, Mother,” she said calmly.  
  
She held her back at arm’s length. “Spock, oh my god, what happened, honey?”  
  
“Stonn made disparaging remarks against both you and my person.”  
  
“So you hit him?!”  
  
“I was sufficiently provoked and I feel no guilt.”  
  
Amanda’s mouth opened and closed in quick succession. She gave a shallow laugh and shook her head.

* * *

Stonn announced his intention to dissolve their bond when the time came. He declared that he would instead bond with T’Pring, who was, in his words, ‘a real girl.’  
  
Spock could not say she was particularly disappointed. Sarek made up for it by being indignant enough for the both of them.

* * *

“Mother, I have a query,” Spock said.  
  
“Sure, sweetie. You can ask me anything.”  
  
“These people on Earth. The ones who are not male nor female. What pronouns do they use? Is it always the ones they were born with?”  
  
“No, sweetie. You can use whatever pronouns you like,” she said. “Those people are called nonbinary, because they don’t subscribe to either binary gender. There’s lots of different types of nonbinary. Some people are both a boy and a girl. Some people are neither. Some people are boys on some days and girls on others. Some people are only partly a boy or partly a girl. Demi.”  
  
“Are there different pronouns for all those different things?” she asked, eyebrows raised.  
  
“No. Lots of nonbinary people use they and them as pronouns. Some keep the binary ones they were assigned, or switch to others. There are also neo pronouns.”  
  
“Neo pronouns?”  
  
“Yes. New pronouns created entirely to be an alternative to she or he. Like xe, ze, ey, per, ve… The list goes on.”  
  
Spock thought about that. “I can use any pronouns?”  
  
“Any ones that you want. Whatever makes you feel the most comfortable.”  
  
She nodded. “I like xe.”  
  
“Xe it is then.” Amanda smiled.

* * *

Spock was not supposed to be eavesdropping. Spock was not even supposed to be home, actually; this was supposed to be a private meeting between xyr parents and three of the elders from the High Council.  
  
Xe curled down in a little ball in an alcove just off the livingroom. Xe pressed a pointed ear against the door and thanked the ancient deities that xe had inherited xyr father’s superior hearing.  
  
“We understand that the child you have last born is the Vulcan known as Spock,” one of the elders said.  
  
“Affirmative,” Sarek said.  
  
“We did not anticipate this,” a different voice said. “We assumed that since the child had been born a female, then a later one would be the prophesied Spock.”  
  
“As did we,” Amanda admitted. “But it’s true. Xe is Spock. I don’t even think we’ll have another child, to be honest.”  
  
“It is a relief,” Sarek said.  
  
“Since some aspects of the child’s future are known to us, preparations can be made in advance,” the third elder said.  
  
“What sort of preparations?” Amanda asked.  
  
“Your child is the future bondmate of the Terran hero James Kirk. It would be logical for them to form a preliminary bond now.”


	2. Shotgun Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frank’s a massive dick in this chapter. And in every other chapter he shows up in tbh, just warning you
> 
> Also the only reason Kirk uses he/him pronouns in this chapter is because she doesn’t know she’s a girl yet, the second she realizes, that’ll change

The doorbell rang on the Kirk farmhouse.  
  
“You gonna get that, boy, or what?” Frank asked, downing another sip of his beer. Jim reluctantly hit pause on his video game and trudged to the door, throwing it wide open.  
  
He was greeted with the sight of two stoic, official-looking Vulcans.  
  
“Are you James Tiberius Kirk?” one of them asked.  
  
“Frank!” he called back into the house. “Vulcans are here!”

* * *

  
“So, would you like some coffee, beer? Wait, you guys prolly don’t drink beer, do you? It’d make you all… illogical,” Frank said.  
  
“I believe we will forego refreshments. This visit will be brief,” one of the Vulcan elders said.  
  
They took their seats on the livingroom couch, looking appropriately Vulcan and overly formal. Frank sat in a chair next to the couch, and Jim ended up standing over by the holo-projector.  
  
“So. Why’re ya here?” Frank asked.  
  
“We have located Spock.”  
  
“You mean he was born?” Jim blurted out. He knew the situation. The whole galaxy knew the situation, and was holding its breath, waiting for a child named Spock to be born to Amanda Grayson and S’chn T’Gai Sarek.  
  
“Negative. It appears that the child was already alive and, in fact, older than you. We elected to wait until you were seven years of age to inform you as that is the customary age for a preliminary to be formed among Vulcan children.”  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
“We await your decision.”  
  
“My decision on what?” Jim asked.  
  
“Your inevitable marriage to Spock.”  
  
_“What?!”_  
  
“Allow me to explain,” a different elder said. “You will marry Spock. We are simply requesting that you are betrothed now in order to expedite the process.”  
  
“Betrothed? I thought you said you were gonna marry the kid off,” Frank said.  
  
“It is a preliminary bond. It would be allowed to mature into a full marital bond with time. However, at first it would allow for merely an awareness of the other’s presence. You would be able to sense that Spock is alive and feel the child’s presence.”

Something about that wording seemed off, but Jim couldn’t pinpoint what. He brushed it off as something being lost in translation.  
  
“What if I don’t wanna marry Spock?” he asked.  
  
“Illogical. You will with time.”  
  
“But,” he said. “What if I wanna marry someone I love?”  
  
“You will love Spock. Spock is your t’hy’la.”  
  
“I don’t know what that means and I don’t care. I wanna marry someone I love. Someone that _I_ picked out.”  
  
The Vulcans merely turned to Frank. “You are his legal guardian, correct?”  
  
“Yep. When Winona’s in space, the kid is practically mine.”  
  
“If you would sign this form granting your consent, the procedure can be undertaken,” they said, holding out a padd.  
  
Frank folded his arms and made no move to take it. Hope surged through Jim. “What’s in it for me?”  
  
The hope was crushed like a ground-up pill.  
  
“Whatever you want. Within reason,” one of the elders said.  
  
Frank smirked.

* * *

“No! I’m not going!”  
  
“Jim, these Vulcans paid me a lot of money for you, so you are definitely going. Is that understood?”  
  
“No!” Jim kicked him in the shin. Frank cursed and grabbed the wrangling child, hoisting him up in the air almost effortlessly and holding him at arm’s length to avoid his furiously flying limbs.  
  
He marched Jim down the tarmac towards the shuttle and now Jim was crying, wailing, pounding his fists on anything he could reach and trying to run on air.  
  
“Do you require assistance?” A Vulcan asked Frank dispassionately.  
  
“Yeah, that’d be great, actually.”  
  
The last thing Jim remembered was a slender hand reaching for his neck.

* * *

He woke up in some schmancy hotel room.  
  
The bed was a huge king-size four-poster that made Jim feel incredibly tiny and also like he was getting it dirty with his grubby, mud-caked jeans. He sat up in bed and crawled over to edge, swinging his legs down and hopping off.  
  
He was alone.  
  
He ran to the door and tried jiggling the handle only to find it locked from the outside. He rushed to the windows on the other side of the room and found that they didn’t open.  
  
There was another door in the room that did open. To a luxurious bathroom.  
  
Jim sat back down on the bed with a huff.  
  
Well, this was just… crappy. And stupid. Stupid and crappy, just like Frank.  
  
He had literally nothing to do and absolutely no clue what was going on. At that moment, he hated being a kid. Why couldn’t he be his own legal guardian and make his own decisions? Did Mom know about this? What was she going to think when she came back and found him married?  
  
Or, well, not married. _Betrothed_. Whatever that meant. Jim was only in first grade; that had never been one of his vocab words before. And yeah, he tended to know a lot of extra words that were above his grade level, but still, he had never read a book that used that word before. He had no clue what it meant.  
  
Not-married. Betrothed.  
  
It sounded fancy. Probably was. Probably was some fancy grown-up thing that he didn’t want anything to do with and was super complicated and boring. That would figure. That’s the type of situation Frank would get him into.  
  
This sucked.  
  
The door was flung open and a Vulcan child was shoved into the room. The door was closed, latched, locked again before either of them could react.  
  
Jim stared.  
  
The kid looked about ten years old and was wearing formal, expensive Vulcan robes that made Jim’s play clothes seem even shabbier in comparison.  
  
“Are you Spock?” he asked.  
  
“Affirmative.”  
  
“They say they’re gonna make us get married.”  
  
Spock quirked up an eyebrow. “I was told it was a betrothal only.”  
  
“I don’t know what that means.”  
  
“It means we will be married in the future. The distant future.”  
  
“Oh,” Jim said. “Isn’t that just called an engagement?”

“An engagement is formed by choice. We have no choice in this matter.”  
  
“Did your parents sell you too?”  
  
“What?” Spock seemed alarmed.  
  
“The High Council gave my uncle a lot of money if he would sign the paper saying I had to be here.”  
  
“I—My parents made no similar arrangement.”  
  
“Then why are you here?”

“You are my t’hy’la. It is logical that I bond with you.”  
  
“What’s a t’hy’la?”  
  
“It is… difficult to translate. Literally rendered, it means friend, brother, lover. The bond is highly revered among my people. Ancient warriors would seek out such bonds and act as shieldmates and brothers in arms to one another.”  
  
A thread of suspicion was nagging at Jim in the back of his mind. “If you had to translate it to just one word in Standard—if you absolutely had to—what would it be?”  
  
“Soulmate,” Spock said easily.

* * *

Jim was avoiding Spock. Very determinedly. He had locked himself in the bathroom for over two hours now, with the sole purpose of avoiding his star-destined soulmate.  
  
Destiny was total bullcrap. Jim could do whatever he wanted. He didn’t have to marry Spock. He shouldn’t have to. He was allowed to choose his own future. He wasn’t going to just sit back and let his whole life be dictated for him because of some stupid prophecy.  
  
What if he wasn’t cut out to save the world? What if he was just an ordinary kid?  
  
What if the whole galaxy relied on him and then he failed? What if Earth got destroyed because they had thought they could trust Jim when they couldn’t?  
  
What if he failed?  
  
They said that someday he would go back in time and save the entire Federation from being wiped out of existence. But what if he did it wrong? The details weren’t clear. Nobody knew anything about the specifics. They just knew that Jim was going to save them, and they all trusted him to do it.  
  
And they wanted him to marry Spock.  
  
It wasn’t that he had anything against Spock. Xe seemed nice enough. For a total stranger. He supposed that was why they had been locked in a room together.  
  
Well, tough luck. He wasn’t talking to xem.  
  
He slumped against the bathroom door and stalwartly refused to cry. He was tough. He was a hero. Heroes don’t cry.  
  
“Jim?” Spock asked quietly. “Will you please come out now?”  
  
“Why should I?” he snapped.  
  
There was a beat of silence. “I am worried about you.”  
  
Jim frowned. Great. Spock didn’t even know him and xe was already worried about him. That was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to happen.  
  
They weren’t getting married.  
  
He sighed and opened the door, not meeting Spock’s eyes as he stepped out.  
  
“Hi,” he muttered.  
  
“Hello,” Spock said.  
  
Jim shuffled his feet, staring firmly at the ground.  
  
“The bond can be broken,” Spock said.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Once we become adults. We have the legal power to break the bond and get a divorce. This can be temporary, if you wish.”  
  
“ _If_ I wish? Are you saying you want this to happen?”  
  
“You are my t’hy’la. I shall cherish thee no matter what. And that includes respecting your decision to take another,” xe said. “I realize I am an undesirable mate.”  
  
“What? No you aren’t.”  
  
“Then why…?”  
  
“Freedom,” Jim said. “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you. It’s just… I’d like to _choose_ to marry you.”  
  
Spock blinked serenely. “You show great wisdom.”  
  
“Um, thanks.”  
  
Just then, two adults, one Vulcan and one human, entered the room. “It is time for the ceremony.”

* * *

Jim was ordered to take a shower and change into a child-sized tuxedo that he thought was just the height of weirdness.  
  
They were taken out to the Forge. The sun beat down mercilessly, and Jim was sweating buckets in his tux. He tugged fruitlessly at the collar. Frank swatted his hand away.  
  
A very old woman was carried out on a throne by people who were apparently servants and she stood before Jim and Spock. Thousands of paparazzi, news crews, dignitaries, and Federation representatives filled the audience. This was the wedding of the century, after all.  
  
The old woman began droning on tonelessly in ancient Golic and Jim zoned out.  
  
She kept talking.  
  
For. Two. Hours.  
  
Jim knew for a fact that if this went on one minute longer, he was going to literally die.  
  
Ten minutes passed. He was going to pass out any second now.  
  
He decided he sort of hated Vulcan.  
  
“James Kirk, repeat after me,” the old woman said suddenly, startling him. “I, James Tiberius Kirk.”  
  
“I, James Tiberius Kirk.”  
  
“Take thee Spock.”  
  
“Take thee Spock.”  
  
“As my intended bondmate, in the ways of the ancients, by grace of the goddess of love and joy and beauty, Valdena.”  
  
“Um, as my intended bondmate, in the way of the ancients, because of the love goddess Valdena.”  
  
The audience laughed and Jim’s face burned.  
  
The old woman seemed entirely unfazed and repeated the procedure with Spock, this time entirely in Vulcan. Then Spock held out two fingers to him.  
  
Frank nudged him none too gently.  
  
Jim placed his fingers against Spock’s and it was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m considering changing Spock’s pronouns to they/them what do you guys think? At the very least I’m going to have xem use them as like backup pronouns or something


	3. School Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vulcan translations are at the end

The official story put forth by the High Council was that Spock had seemingly been unfound for years because they had been respecting xyr privacy in keeping xyr existence a secret. Of course, most of Shi’Kahr knew the truth.  
  
But the tendency to gossip was not a Vulcan trait.  
  
So Spock’s transition was summarily covered up. The Council said it was to give xem privacy.  
  
Spock didn’t know what to think about that.

* * *

Spock’s classmates gave xem a wide berth.  
  
Xe was half-human. Xyr intended was a human. Xe was destined to join the human organization of Starfleet. In xyr peers’ eyes, Spock was practically a human xemself and xyr future was already mapped out.  
  
A future that did not in any way include other Vulcans.  
  
It would be illogical to foster closeness when one knew it was destined to be temporary. Being friends with Spock was illogical.  
  
So Spock had no friends.  
  
This was a perfectly acceptable arrangement. As a Vulcan, xe did not require emotional connections to xyr peers. Or anyone, for that matter.  
  
Which was exactly what xe told xyr mother.  
  
“Spock,” she said, concerned. “Now, I know that’s true for Vulcans, but you’re half human too. You have to accept that.”  
  
“False. I do not have to accept any such thing. You and Father agreed to raise me as though I were a full-blooded Vulcan, and I shall act as one.”  
  
Something about xyr mother’s eyes looked sad, but Spock brushed it off. Emotions were trivial. They did not matter.

* * *

“Why do you not leave Vulcan now and go to Earth to be with your intended?” Stonn asked. He and two of his classmates had approached Spock after school let out, backing xem against a wall.  
  
Spock met their eyes unwaveringly. “Vulcan is my home. My family and clan are here.”  
  
“You are Terran. You belong on Earth.”  
  
“I am as Vulcan as I am Terran. I have as much right to be here as any other Vulcan.”  
  
“False. Your attitudes and _lifestyle_ are far too Terran to ever fit into Vulcan society. You do not belong here. You should leave now before you cause the House of Surak further disgrace with your contamination.”  
  
“I am not a contaminant. I am a person.”  
  
“You are a t’var’eth.”  
  
“ _You_ are a t’var’eth.”  
  
“Tvee’okh.”  
  
“Lunikkh ta’vik.”  
  
“ _Viltah_.”  
  
Spock gasped and reeled back as if slapped. The other Vulcans did not react, of course, maintaining their control perfectly.  
  
“See,” Stonn said. He wasn’t smirking. A human would be. “Even now, you prove your unsuitability. If you cannot maintain your control in the face of mere words, then how can you expect to successfully follow the Vulcan way of life?”  
  
Spock stumbled back a step. Another. And then xe turned and took off running.

* * *

Spock had a whole hell of a lot to prove. Xyr worth was constantly in question in the eyes of Vulcan society. Xe was the vessel of the prophecy. The bondmate of Earth’s savior. The half-human, genderless kid who no one thought was good enough.  
  
So xe worked hard.  
  
Xe spent hours each night studying, more than any of xyr classmates. Xe was the perfect Vulcan. Xe never told xyr mother xe loved her. Xe practiced control religiously. Xe never strayed from the ways of Surak in the slightest.  
  
Except when necessary.  
  
Stonn was proving to be an annoyance of unprecedented caliber. He and his lackeys had taken a special interest in Spock, and more specifically, in trying to elicit an emotional reaction from Spock.  
  
They had found that Spock did not respond to insults directed at xemself half as well as xe responded to insults to xyr mother.  
  
Spock acquired a dermal regenerator and kept it hidden in a hole xe dug under a large rock in the garden. Xe would slip out there on the bad days and repair the damage before Amanda would ever see. These confrontations usually happened after school, and as such, the school authorities never deigned to involve themselves. It was only on days when Spock required a bone knitter that xe would allow xyr parents to see the damage and take them to a hospital.  
  
The school did nothing. Spock refused to state who xyr bullies were. Stonn was well-liked and well-approved of. If xe took action against them, there would be massive retaliation or at the very least new bullies would take their place.  
  
So Spock hid the damage. Xe became an expert with a dermal regenerator. Xe learned how to twist the truth without technically lying and evade hard questions.  
  
And xe was fine.

* * *

Winona Kirk had a full-on conniption. She heard about the bond over the news and freaked out and immediately requested a leave of absence so she could return to Earth.  
  
She kicked Frank out of the house, and Jim didn’t even try to hide his grin.  
  
And things were good. Jim had friends coming out of the wazoo. Everyone loved him. He was the most popular kid in school by a long shot.  
  
Part of him wondered if that was just because he was famous or whatever, but a different, larger part of him didn’t care and loved the attention.  
  
Until Gary Mitchell happened.  
  
Gary Mitchell was… somebody important. Maybe. In the future. The prophecy had shown a quick flash of him and Jim talking (apparently Jim becomes a professor one day? Who knew.) So when he ended up going to the same school as Jim, the faculty made sure they were in the same class and sat right next to each other.  
  
“Hi!” Gary said exuberantly, plopping down next to Jim. “Will you be my friend?”  
  
“No,” he said with a frown.  
  
“Why?” Gary asked, looking hurt and shocked.  
  
“I’m not gonna be your friend just because you were in some stupid prophecy. If we’re gonna be friends, it’ll be because we’re friends, not just ‘cuz of that doody-head prophecy.”  
  
“Oh,” he said. “Okay. Well, can you be my friend _not_ because of the prophecy?”  
  
Jim thought about it. He had absolutely no reason to say no. And Gary had brought over a box of crayons for them to share. A very large box of crayons.  
  
“Sure!” he chirped.

* * *

Winona had made it so that reporters weren’t allowed within 500 meters of the Kirk property line but that rule didn’t apply to Gary’s house.  
  
Jim hated going there. Gary always insisted on it. There was always some reason or other why they couldn’t go to Jim’s house or they had to go to Gary’s. The reasons got thinner and thinner, and Jim got slowly suspicious.  
  
But he wasn’t quite sure of what.  
  
“They’re making a movie about me,” Gary said one day while they were playing with trains.  
  
“What?” Jim asked.  
  
“Yeah. ‘Cuz I’m your best friend and stuff. One lady called me your sidekick though, and I didn’t like that.” His nose wrinkled.  
  
“Are you gonna be in the movie?”  
  
“Oh yeah. It’s a documentary. All the holos are real and stuff. Real holos of me. And you.”  
  
“I’m in the movie?”  
  
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “It’s all about the two of us and how we’re best friends. You are my best friend, right?”  
  
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, of course.”  
  
But he began to wonder.

* * *

Jim was eleven when it happened.  
  
He and Gary had just gotten out from seeing a holovid only to find reporters swarming around the theater’s exit, waiting for them. They were shouting, shining bright lights in their faces, asking a million questions all at once.  
  
And then Gary kissed him.  
  
Jim gasped. “What’d you do that for?”  
  
He shrugged. “My—my mom told me to.”  
  
Tears sprang to Jim’s eyes and his chin started to wobble. He clamped it shut firmly and glared.  
  
He stormed off, Gary shouting his name behind him. He didn’t look back.  
  
The news channels ran the footage for a week.

* * *

Jim was determined to not be the great and illustrious James Tiberius Kirk. He did not want that. He fucking hated the prophecy. It had ruined his entire life, and he was going to do his damnedest to make sure he didn’t turn out to be who they wanted him to be.  
  
He set out to prove that he was no hero.  
  
He got in fights. He didn’t do his homework. He talked back to teachers and was lazy with his chores. He “dated” three girls in one school year, setting a personal record for his fifth grade class and shocking the media.  
  
He did not want to be James Tiberius Kirk. She did not want to be that man. She didn’t want to grow up to live that life, the life that everybody claimed was so great.  
  
It wasn’t great for _her_.  
  
She was still going along with being a guy, even though she knew she wasn’t. She was… She was nervous. She was nervous that this would be brushed off as more of her just acting out, when in truth, nothing had ever been this important. Nothing had ever mattered this much.  
  
She imagined herself in a command gold dress, twirling, long blonde hair flowing behind her, her waist narrow and her hips wide. That was the type of grown-up she wanted to be. She wanted to be free, among the stars, able to choose her own destiny. Choose her own spouse.  
  
She wanted freedom. She felt so trapped, all the time, like she couldn’t breathe, like she was suffocating. It was horrible. It was intolerable.  
  
It was Every. Single. Day.  
  
She was twelve when she finally snapped.  
  
She got in the old cherry red Corvette in the garage and just started driving.  
  
And boy, was she bad at it.  
  
She slammed onto the gas pedal as hard as she could, the plains blurring past her. Winona’s voice was frantic through her comm. Jim shut it off and grit her teeth.  
  
She passed Sam walking down the road with a backpack slung over his shoulders.  
  
“Traitor,” she muttered. He died young in the prophecy and he knew it. He was trying to escape just as much as she was.  
  
Only unlike Sam, there was nowhere far enough that Jim could run to where she wouldn’t be recognized. Which was another reason why she wished she didn’t look the way she did.  
  
She pressed harder on the gas pedal and imagined wind whipping through long hair behind her.  
  
She was heading straight towards a cliff. She pressed the pedal down impossibly harder.  
  
There was a police bot behind her. She ignored it.  
  
The cliff was right in front of her now. Just a little further. Just a little further and she’d be flying free through the air.  
  
She drove the car right off the cliff and she jumped.  
  
The cop caught her.

* * *

“And just what the hell were you thinking, young man?” Winona asked, positively seething. Jim cringed.  
  
“I—I don’t know, I just—“  
  
“Just what?” She put her hands on her hips.  
  
“I just… I just wanted…”  
  
“Wanted what, Jim? What were you thinking?”  
  
“I don’t know! I wanted to know what it felt like to fall off a cliff! Is that a good enough reason?! I hate the stupid prophecy! What if I don’t _want_ to fulfill it?”  
  
She looked at him in horror and confusion. “Are you saying you want billions to die?”  
  
“No! I’m just—“ She groaned in frustration. “Can’t someone else save them?”  
  
“Jim,” Winona scolded. “I know it may seem like a big responsibility, but you can obviously handle it. You have to handle it. I know you can do it. Everyone does. We all have so much faith in you, Jim. You’re going to be a great man someday—“  
  
“I’m not going to _be_ a man someday.”  
  
Winona froze.  
  
Jim clapped a hand over her mouth.  
  
_Fuck_. She had _not_ meant to say that.  
  
“What do you mean?” Winona asked.  
  
Jim said nothing. Maybe she could undo the damage somehow. Maybe she could take it back. Maybe what she had really meant to say was…  
  
How else could that possibly be interpreted?  
  
“Jim? Jim, what are you talking about?”  
  
She licked her lips. “Nothing?”  
  
“Are you… Are you saying that you’re… a girl?”  
  
She looked down at the ground, eyes prickling with the warning of future tears, and wished she could take words back.  
  
“Sweetie. Sweetie, it’s okay, but you have to be mistaken. Jim Kirk is a man. We know that from the prophecy.”  
  
A single tear escaped from her eye, and she swiped at it angrily.  
  
“But—But didn’t the prophecy come from an alternate universe? Maybe… maybe things are different here.”  
  
Fear spiked through Winona’s chest. “The Federation can’t afford for things to be different. Jim, you aren’t _allowed_ to be a girl. You _have_ to fulfill the prophecy.”  
  
“But—“  
  
“No,” she said. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She was going to hate herself for this. But it had to be done. It was time. Maybe this would teach Jim.  
  
The Federation Council had sanctioned it. All the arrangements were already in place.  
  
She took a deep breath. “I’m sending you to live with Frank on Tarsus IV.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T’var’eth = whelp, undisciplined youth  
> Tvee’okh = unvulcan (insultingly)  
> Lunikkh ta’vik = poisoner of wells— ancient Vulcan insult  
> Viltah = slur against mixed heritage


	4. Tarsus IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know in canon the federation doesn’t really have a death penalty but I had to give tarsus a population somehow :/

Everyone old enough to remember when the prophecy went out knew what happened to Tarsus IV. Vaguely. Or anyway, they knew the governor came to be known as Kodos the Executioner and something about a massacre but that was it.  
  
It had been deemed that the incidents on Tarsus IV were fundamental to Jim Kirk’s development and so they would be allowed to play out as if the authorities had no prior knowledge of the disaster.  
  
Some arrangements were made, of course. The civilians of the colony were all evacuated. It became a penal colony for solely criminals who had committed death penalty offenses. And, of course, one man named Frank, who was given exorbitant amounts of money and protection and assurances.  
  
Tarsus IV became the Federation’s own Rura Penthe. It was a hellhole of death and violence and lawlessness, left entirely on its own and all but abandoned by the government. It was nothing at all like the peaceful farming colony it had been in the Prime universe.  
  
But the point was, at least it existed.  
  
Jim was shipped off a month before her thirteenth birthday. Everyone was acting strange. No one would meet her eyes. She had pulled out of school immediately after Winona decided it was time. She was practically put under house arrest until all the arrangements were made and everything was ready.  
  
She walked out to the shuttle in eerie silence, hundreds of cameras trained on her but none of the press saying a single word. For some reason she felt nervous. There was something off about all of this.  
  
But she had no clue what.  
  
She stepped onto the shuttle and the door closed itself behind her.

* * *

There was a school on Tarsus IV. Jim wasn’t the only child there, though she was the oldest. The other kids had been born on the colony.  
  
There was Tamara and Tom, both twelve. Angela, age seven. Kevin, who was three. And Juliet and Johnny, twins, six months old.  
  
There were so few children that the school had only one classroom and one teacher for all of them, like an old Earth frontier school from centuries ago. They were all given aptitude tests and had their assignments designed based on that.  
  
The school was more of a day care, really, what with Kevin and the twins being there too. It was essentially a dumping ground for everyone who wasn’t a prisoner and therefore couldn’t be forced to work the fields. Jim had no doubt she would be put to work if they found half a reason to, and so she refused to give them one. For the first time in her life, Jim Kirk was on her best behavior.  
  
Their teacher was a kind young woman named Ms. Peters and Jim had just a teeny amount of hero worship for her. She was able to answer every one of Jim’s questions, no matter how convoluted or advanced they were. What with having such a small class, she spent a lot of time working with each of them one on one, and Jim thought of her as practically a friend.  
  
For two years, things were good. There were no reporters. Jim went by JT Callahan—Frank’s last name—and no one questioned it. She introduced herself to the class as a girl and no one questioned that either. She hardly ever saw Frank and the man didn’t give a single shit about her as long as she continued to live and thus provide him with money. There were no barber shops on Tarsus, and Frank certainly couldn’t be bothered to cut her hair, so it began to grow out.  
  
Things were good. Jim was… happy. She actually began to love Tarsus, to prefer living there than on Earth. Sure, maybe the colony wasn’t all that developed or advanced, but that could definitely be a good thing.  
  
She did wonder why no reporters ever came though. She had half-expected some of them to follow her out here, at least briefly. Maybe that was vain of her. Maybe she wasn’t as important or famous as she thought. Maybe the novelty of a prophesied hero was finally starting to wear off.  
  
Maybe she would be left alone now.

* * *

She was fifteen when the famine hit.  
  
It was just rumors at first. Reports of a blight. Something was wrong with the crops, but it was no big deal. So the yield wouldn’t be as big this year, so what? The Federation would still provide for them no matter what.  
  
The plague spread. It consumed acre after acre and swallowed up entire fields. Whole farms went under in a single night. There would be no harvest at all this year, the food was all poisoned.  
  
The Federation supply ship had just left. There were so many colonies, all practically self-sufficient. It wouldn’t be back for another two years, and when it came, most of its supplies wouldn’t be food.  
  
Kodos tried sending out a distress signal, but there was no answer.  
  
People started disappearing in the night.  
  
It wasn’t enough to really notice at first. And no one dared say anything about it. The few who did were labelled paranoid conspiracy theorists and then they too disappeared.  
  
One day Kodos called a meeting with a thousand of the colony’s citizens in attendance. Ms. Peters stood at the back with all her students, her huge baby bump and the children surrounding her ensuring she was given a wide berth.  
  
“I have wondrous news people,” Kodos’ voice boomed out. “The colony of Tarsus IV is no longer under Federation control. We have been neglected and left to die by those authorities. I now declare Tarsus IV an independent state.  
  
“The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.”  
  
That’s when the town hall erupted in phaser fire.  
  
People were screaming, shoving, the smell of flesh burning was filling the air and Jim was choking on smoke. Ms. Peters was dragging Kevin and Angela by the hands, running to the nearby door. Jim quickly scooped up the twins and followed after her, Tom and Tamara at her sides.  
  
They ran out of the burning building and sprinted to the outskirts of the colony, going into the woods and still not stopping, still running even when Jim got a bad stitch in her side and Ms. Peters’ face was far too red and Kevin kept crying and stumbling and needed to be carried by Tom.  
  
It was dark out and they could still see the smoke pillar rising up from the town hall in the distance. The screams were too far away to be heard, though.  
  
Ms. Peters dropped Angela’s hand and clutched at her stomach, doubled over and heaving. She waved a hand away at her students’ concerned looks.  
  
“I’m fine,” she rasped. “I’m fine, I just need a little break.”

* * *

“How many survived?” Kodos asked, stepping over charred bodies in the town hall.  
  
“Thirteen. All escaped,” one of his men said.  
  
“Kirk among them?”  
  
“Yes. The teacher led all the children out as soon as the shooting started.”  
  
“I want that boy found. He’s the Federation’s prize pig. He’s the reason the people of this colony were left to die. Tell all my guards. Killing Kirk is the number one priority.”

* * *

“Okay,” Ms. Peters said, sitting down heavily on a log. “We’re going to stay out here in the woods for a while. Think of it as—a wilderness retreat. Like a really long field trip. So first order of business is to find food and water. Now class, where can we find food and water in the wilderness?”  
  
“A stream or something?” Angela asked.  
  
“That’s right. First one to find one gets an A+ for the day,” she said. “Now what about food?”  
  
“Chevlar berries are edible,” Jim said.  
  
“But they taste gross,” Kevin said, wrinkling his nose up.  
  
“I’m sorry, Kevin, but you’re going to have to eat them anyway. What else can we eat?”  
  
Tom raised his hand.  
  
“Yes, Tom?”  
  
“There’s wild mint that grows in these woods. It was transplanted here from Earth.”  
  
“That’s right. And mint leaves are good for stomachaches, right, class?” she said. “Now let’s—let’s start looking for those supplies.”

* * *

Berries and mint leaves were not a fulfilling diet.  
  
Every day, Ms. Peters had them walk farther into the woods for as long as they could, farther away from the colony. She said it wasn’t safe. She wouldn’t say why.  
  
They all got thinner and thinner. But they weren’t starving, not yet, and so they were okay. Ms. Peters was going to keep them safe. She knew what to do.  
  
But a week into their journey, she went into labor. She talked Jim, Tom, and Tamara through delivering her baby.  
  
“Lenore,” she gasped. “Her name is Lenore.”  
  
Ms. Peters was dead within the hour.  
  
Jim’s mind was racing, trying to figure out what she had done wrong. How she could have saved her.  
  
Kevin and Angela were crying.  
  
“We need to bury her,” Jim said.  
  
“What?” Tom croaked.  
  
“She deserves a funeral. We can’t just… leave her out for the animals to get.”  
  
The other kids looked appalled. Jim scanned the woods around them, and found a nice, shady spot under some trees. She marched over and began digging with her hands.  
  
“Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “Help me.”  
  
Tamara was the first to move. Then came Kevin. The others were still shell-shocked, Tom holding onto baby Lenore and Angela trying to keep the twins pacified. They were two now, with almost all their teeth in and just barely able to eat the leaves they were fed. They were thinning faster than the other kids, their baby fat dropping off impossibly fast.  
  
The kids dug a shallow grave and dragged their teacher’s body across the ground, dropping her into it.  
  
Then everyone looked to Jim.  
  
“Um,” she said, voice wavering. “Ms. Peters was a great teacher. A great lady. She saved all our lives when she could have easily not have. She was a hero, through and through. She kept us all alive, and we’re going to honor her memory. And keep her daughter safe for her. It’s the least we can do. Lenore Peters is going to make it off of Tarsus IV. We all are. I promise.”  
  
Some of them nodded. Others sniffled.  
  
“What do we do now, JT?” Kevin asked, in his high-pitched five-year-old voice.  
  
“We walk,” she said. “We have to keep moving. Ms. Peters had us heading west, so we’re going to keep heading west. Follow me.”

* * *

“What are you doing?” Tamara asked.  
  
“Making a trap,” Jim said, sticking her tongue out in concentration. She brushed a flyaway blonde strand away from her face.  
  
“A trap for what? Are you worried about… Kodos’ men?”  
  
“No. We’re too far away for them to get us. This is for catching animals,” she said, putting the final piece in place and covering it all with leaves. “We need meat. The twins are starving.”  
  
“Not as bad as Lenore,” Tamara said. “We need milk more than we need meat.”  
  
“Well, we have no way of getting milk. So mint berry mush is going to have to do,” she said. “I mean, it’s not that different from baby food, right? Not if we grind it up really well.”  
  
“I thought you weren’t supposed to give them baby food until they were a few months old.”  
  
Jim shrugged. “Do we have a choice? I meant what I said. I’m keeping that kid alive. Whatever it takes.”

* * *

She wasn’t really sure when she fell for Tamara. She wasn’t even aware of it happening. She was in survival mode, keeping herself and her kids alive.  
  
She had no idea how much she cared until Tamara kissed her and it was so unlike when Gary kissed her and she was kissing back, hands coming up to tangle in her braids, and the other kids were giving wolf whistles and cries of how gross it was in the background but neither of them cared.  
  
For just this moment, things were okay.

* * *

They set up a permanent camp. It made sense. They had found a fast-moving stream. They had traps in the area. They were far enough away to be safe. It no longer made sense to burn so many calories walking every day. They needed to conserve their fat stores.  
  
Honestly, they needed a break.  
  
Lenore cried All. The. Time. And it became Tom’s job to take care of her.  
  
They started giving more food to the younger kids. The twins were too thin. Lenore threw up too much. Kevin and Angela had sunken eyes and skin stretched thin over their bones.  
  
Not that the older kids were better off, but they could at least handle it better.  
  
Then one day Angela wandered off and ate a strange fruit she found and got horribly sick. She started puking and going to the bathroom near constantly. She couldn’t keep anything in her stomach.  
  
She needed to be in a hospital, being given hypos and hooked up to an IV line. But they couldn’t do that.  
  
She was dead in three days and they dug another grave, much tinier this time, and Jim said a few words over it again and everyone cried.  
  
They moved camp because they couldn’t stand to keep seeing that awful dirt mound that held a too-skinny nine-year-old.

* * *

“You need to eat this,” Tamara said, holding out a charred piece of meat that reminded Jim way too much of the phaser-fried bodies in the town hall. Her stomach grumbled.  
  
She shook her head. “Give it to Kevin. He needs it more.”  
  
“No. JT, you haven’t had anything but water in three days. You’re gonna get sick like Angela did. You need to eat.”  
  
“I need to save you guys more.”  
  
“You have a complex, you know that, right?” she said. “ _Eat_. You’re our leader. We need you.”  
  
“I’m not Kodos. I’m not going to take food away from people who need it more just because you guys decided I’m in charge.”  
  
“Then eat because I’m your girlfriend and I don’t want to have to bury you.”  
  
She held out the burned piece of meat again. The firelight accentuated the deep shadows on her face, but even still, Jim thought she was beautiful. She would always be beautiful.  
  
She took the meat and ate it slowly so she wouldn’t puke it back up.

* * *

“Found them!” a distant voice called. Jim jumped out of sleep, instantly on her feet.  
  
“Everybody up!” she whisper-hissed. She went around furiously shaking shoulders and holding a finger to her lips.  
  
She led her kids to the north, creeping silently through the woods. They couldn’t run. They would be heard, overpowered, shot. She led them about fifty feet away and then stopped as the soldiers reached their camp. She motioned for her kids to hide.  
  
She couldn’t let the soldiers see shadows moving in the dark. Or god forbid if someone stepped on a twig.  
  
They all crouched behind trees or inside bushes. Jim scrambled up inside a tree where she could keep an eye on all her kids at once.  
  
The soldiers fanned out, searching.  
  
Her heartbeat was so loud she was sure they could hear it.  
  
Lenore cried.  
  
“Over there!”


	5. Kodos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for offscreen torture and minor character death. Also just a general warning that this chapter is dark.

_Fuckfuckfuckfuck_.  
  
The kids were still as statues, holding even their breath. Jim wasn’t religious before that moment, but she suddenly decided she was and prayed for the kids who were only standing behind trees.  
  
Lenore was still crying. In the dying light of the fire, Jim saw Kodos himself approach and scoop her up, wrenching her from Tamara’s arms.  
  
And then he shot Tamara point-blank in the face.  
  
Jim clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.  
  
The rest of the kids were blessedly, blissfully silent.  
  
Kodos wandered around the area almost casually. He had plenty of time and he knew it.  
  
Jim had never wanted to kill someone before that moment. It shocked her with how powerful the emotion was, how deep it ran within her.  
  
“Kirk,” Kodos said softly. “If you give yourself up now, I’ll spare your friends.”  
  
Her breath froze in her throat.  
  
She had to do it, didn’t she? She had made a promise.  
  
She had made a promise.  
  
She shifted to begin climbing out of the tree.  
  
A bush twitched and Kodos shot it instantly. Johnny gave a sharp cry as he died.  
  
Jim closed her eyes. No. This couldn’t be happening.  
  
“I’m coming!” she said. “I’m coming. Don’t kill any more of them. I surrender.”  
  
She dropped out of the tree with her hands in the air. She closed her eyes and braced for the phaser shot.  
  
Instead, Kodos yanked her by the arm and dragged her off towards his guards.

* * *

Jim was bound and tied to a chair in the main hall of Kodos’ gubernatorial mansion. A camera was aimed at her face.  
  
The camera was turned on. Kodos punched her.  
  
He turned to address his viewers. “As you can see, I have captured your precious James Kirk. If you do not meet my demands within three days, he will be killed. As an added incentive, every twelve hours until my demands are met, he will be tortured.  
  
“I want an unmanned ship fully stocked with food and working replicators sent here, big enough to sustain a dozen of my most loyal followers. I want safe passage out of the Federation. James Kirk will be beamed out of my ship once we are across the border, and not a moment before then.”  
  
He gave a cocky smile. “You have twelve hours. Or seventy-two. Whichever you prefer.”

* * *

Jim wet herself.  
  
Twelve hours passed. The camera was turned back on and she was untied at phaserpoint. She stood up from the chair, soaked in her own urine, humiliated. She shook out her sore wrists and didn’t look at the camera.  
  
Kodos stripped her naked. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.  
  
She was tied to a post by her wrists, her backside facing the camera and on the one hand, Jim was almost glad they couldn’t see her face. She didn’t know if she would be able to stop herself from crying or not.  
  
Then Kodos got out the whip.

* * *

Spock watched the footage with numb horror. Amanda covered her mouth and put a hand on xyr shoulder.  
  
“How far out is the ship,” xe asked in monotone.  
  
“54.89 hours away. It is travelling at warp five,” Sarek said.  
  
“Why is it not going faster?”  
  
“It is a small ship. Its engines cannot sustain a faster speed.”

* * *

Jim’s back was killing her. She had lacerations all the way from her neck down to her upper thighs, which killed now that she was tied back up in the urine-covered chair. She was going to get an infection. She’d be lucky if this didn’t kill her.  
  
She had no sense of time, her head in a daze, and she wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. The only way she knew how much time was passing was when Kodos came back twelve hours later for her second round of torture.  
  
Or at least she assumed he had kept his word and waited twelve hours. But maybe that was naïve of her.  
  
She was still naked and she was tied back up to the post. This time she was attached directly to it, with ropes circling around her neck, middle, and ankles.  
  
Kodos wrapped his knuckles in bandages and Jim braced herself.

* * *

She slept.  
  
Technically, she passed out from pain, but after that, she slept.  
  
She wondered how her kids were doing. The soldiers had all left with her and Kodos, so they should be home free. With her gone, that meant Tamara… no, Tom, was in charge.  
  
She wondered what Kodos had done with Lenore. Hopefully even he was above slaughtering babies.  
  
And god, the twins. Johnny was dead. If Jim knew anything about those twins, Juliet would be inconsolable. At least now Tom would be able to devote more of his attention to her.  
  
She sounded like Kodos. Fuck, she sounded like Kodos. What decent person thought things like that? One person’s death benefiting another was never something to celebrate. She was a terrible person.  
  
She was as bad as Kodos.  
  
Maybe she deserved the torture. Maybe it would teach her a lesson. Make her more humble or something. God knows she needed that.  
  
Maybe she needed it.

* * *

Spock clicked off the holovid with barely contained fury. Xe would kill the man who brutalized xyr t’hy’la. Xe would.  
  
“I must go to Jim,” xe announced.  
  
“Spock, the ship is going as fast as it can. It’ll get there in time. There’s nothing you can do,” Amanda said.  
  
“I do not care. I must go to Jim.”  
  
“Spock, it is not safe. I must forbid this,” Sarek said.  
  
“That is precisely why I must go.”  
  
Xe was out the door and stealing xyr parent’s aircar before they could even react.

* * *

Spock made it to spacedock and was allowed to board on a ship by simply telling the truth. Xe was S’chn T’Gai Spock, vessel of the prophecy, the betrothed of James Kirk, and xe was going to rescue xyr t’hy’la.  
  
Xe was eighteen anyway. Xe did not need parental permission to board a shuttle.  
  
Sarek and Amanda burst into the docking bay just as the shuttle was taking off. Spock pressed a ta’al against the window.

* * *

If one is rich and important enough, then a shuttle can be diverted to a backwater penal colony at warp eight, much to the other passengers’ protests. Spock did not care.

* * *

Jim was so bruised and battered that she was barely able to hold onto consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time, but she woke up when Kodos dumped a bucket of ice water on her.  
  
She jolted, shivering and drenched, and _god_ , she wished she had clothes.  
  
“Has it been twelve hours already?” she snapped.  
  
“Anxious to get tortured, are we?” Kodos replied.  
  
“Nope, just can’t wait for the Federation to come and kick your ass.”  
  
He looked at her curiously, and then a slow smile spread across his lips. “You don’t know, do you?”  
  
“Know what?”  
  
“This was prophesied. All of this. Your mother knew what she was sending you into. The whole Federation did.” He grabbed her by the chin. “They aren’t on your side. They just want to use you.”  
  
She spit in his face. He stood and wiped the saliva off.  
  
“Think about it. Four thousand people have died here. All on death row anyway, so the Federation doesn’t care. Why is everyone here on death row? Did you seriously never wonder? Or why no reporters, no outsiders, ever set foot on the planet? They all knew. Everyone knew. They knew this was coming. They knew I was going to kill thousands and they let me rule anyway.  
  
“You are nothing to them. You are just a tool to be used and then discarded. They don’t care about your safety or wellbeing. They purposely sent you here, knowing you would endure trauma. Your own mother sent you here.  
  
“You need to face facts, James. Nobody loves you.”  
  
For the first time, Jim looked at the camera, pain and hurt and questions in her eyes.  
  
Then Kodos got out a bucket of water and a rag and set them all in front of Jim.

* * *

The shuttle beamed Spock down to the surface, unwilling to land itself. Xe felt the unfamiliar tingle of their particles dispersing and reforming.  
  
Spock had a plan. First, xe was going to—  
  
Get stunned by a phaser, apparently.

* * *

“Spock!” Jim cried as soon as she saw xem. Then the situation sunk in. Spock was being carried, unconscious, by one of Kodos’ men. A second chair was brought out to the center of the room, right next to Jim, and Spock was unceremoniously dumped in it, a phaser trained on xyr head.  
  
Kodos slapped him and the Vulcan jerked awake.  
  
“That’s better. Say hello to the camera, Mr. Spock.”  
  
Xe blinked dazedly.  
  
Kodos slapped xem again. “I said say hello.”  
  
“Hello,” xe said.  
  
“Good boy. Maybe I’ll keep you around,” he said. “Now I have two prisoners to play with. Someone untie James and turn off the camera. Let them wonder.”  
  
Horrible dread filled Jim’s stomach. Rough hands undid the ropes around her. She sat still as a rock in her chair.  
  
Kodos trained his phaser on her. “Undress your little friend.”  
  
“No!” Jim said instantly.  
  
Kodos levelled the phaser in reminder. Jim swallowed. She couldn’t look at Spock. She stood and her hands hovered over xem, shaking. She couldn’t do this. She had no idea what Kodos had in mind, but she couldn’t do it.  
  
“If you don’t start moving in the next ten seconds, I will shoot your foot off. You’ll lose more body parts after that.”  
  
“Jim,” Spock whispered. “It is okay.”  
  
Jim shook her head, bile rising in her throat.  
  
“Ten.”  
  
“Jim.”  
  
“Nine.”  
  
“ _Jim_.”  
  
Jim tugged at the sash of Spock’s robes with trembling fingers. She pushed the fabric away hurriedly, refusing to look.  
  
“You’re a woman,” Kodos said, surprise evident in his voice. He blinked a few times, and then glared at Jim. “I said undress your friend. Does she look undressed to you?”  
  
“Yeah?” Jim said, still not looking.  
  
“No. Remove the underwear too.”  
  
Anger shot through her. “No.”  
  
Kodos rolled his eyes. “Eight.”  
  
“Jim, it is fine. I am fine,” Spock said.  
  
Feeling sick, Jim peeled off Spock’s binder and briefs.  
  
“Look at her.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Look at her!”  
  
“No!” She whirled on him. “And you won’t talk about my bondmate that way! The only girl in here is me.”  
  
She couldn’t bring herself to care that this was quite possibly the worst moment to have come out. To these people, especially.  
  
“Alright then, _girl_ ,” Kodos said. He thrust a whip into her hands, phaser still trained on her. “Either you whip your friend or I do. Your choice.”  
  
She gasped and dropped it like it was made of fire. “No!”  
  
Kodos shrugged. “Fine.”  
  
And he picked up the whip.

* * *

Spock estimated that unless a miracle happened, they would have two more torture sessions before the ship arrived. It was yet uncertain whether Kodos intended to torture them both or continue attempting to make Jim torture Spock. If it was the latter, then that meant they would have each suffered three sessions. If it was the former, Jim would likely be killed, which was unacceptable.  
  
“So you’re trans, huh?” Jim said. “I am too.”  
  
“Trans?” Spock asked.  
  
“You know, transgender.”  
  
“Mesakh-guvik.”  
  
“Yeah, that.”  
  
“Indeed. I am ri-dahik.”  
  
“What’s that mean?”  
  
Spock searched xyr vocabulary for the Standard equivalent, a word xe had only heard a few times, and years ago at that. “Nonbinary.”  
  
“Oh. What are your pronouns so I don’t use the wrong ones then?”  
  
“Xe, xem, and xyr.”  
  
“Okay. Great. I use she/her. I’m a girl, in case you didn’t pick up on that earlier. I guess if we’re gonna be married then you should probably know that sort of thing.”  
  
“Indeed. I thank you for your trust.”  
  
She laughed. “Well, I mean, it’d be kinda pointless trying to stay in the closet at this point.”  
  
“The closet?”  
  
“Yeah. Oh, it’s human slang. People who are trans or gay but haven’t told people yet are ‘in the closet.’”  
  
“I assume ‘gay’ is slang as well? I am under the assumption that humans find no need to hide their emotions as Vulcans do.”  
  
She grinned. “Yeah, it is slang. It means a guy who likes guys or a girl who likes girls.”  
  
“Ah,” xe said. “Thank you for the clarification.”  
  
“You don’t have to keep thanking me, you know.”  
  
“I find that I desire to.”  
  
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “How’d you end up here anyway? What are you doing on Tarsus?”  
  
“I came to rescue you.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“But you barely know me.”

“You are my t’hy’la. You are treasured, no matter what. And even if you were not, I could not stand idly by and allow you to be tortured.”  
  
She was silent for a minute.  
  
“Is it true? Was this all prophesied?”  
  
“I do not know. I was three at the time of the prophecy and have no memory of it.”  
  
“I thought Vulcan memories were eidetic.”  
  
“It does not work in that manner. Eidetic memories have perfect recall of things physically seen with the eyes. The prophecy was essentially an immaterial telepathic dream. It is entirely different.”  
  
“Oh,” she said. “So you don’t know any more than I do.”  
  
“Affirmative.”  
  
“Great,” she said. “Well, you got any ideas on how to get us out of this mess?”  
  
Xe hesitated.  
  
“Come on, Spock, say it.”  
  
“I do not believe there is anything we can do. We must simply wait until the ship arrives.”


	6. Joining Up

A miracle happened.  
  
A full Starfleet squadron of two dozen officers burst into the mansion, shooting everyone in sight, stunning the entire building within minutes. A young man in a red shirt came over to the two teens and began undoing the ropes that bound them.  
  
“It’s okay, you’re safe now. My name is Lieutenant Pike, I’m with Starfleet, we’re here to rescue you.”

* * *

They were given clothes and taken to sickbay aboard the Enterprise. A doctor looked them over very thoroughly, scanning for everything in the galaxy, it seemed like.  
  
They were given psych evals.  
  
Jim was honestly surprised when she passed. It probably hadn’t all hit her yet.  
  
She was set up with a therapist and a psychiatrist to see once she got back to Riverside. She nodded her acknowledgement mutely.  
  
They tried to cut her hair and she wouldn’t let them.  
  
“Don’t you want your hair to be short again?” a nurse asked.  
  
“No!” she said. Why couldn’t people get that through their thick heads? “It took forever to grow out and I’m not cutting it.”

He sighed. “Well, will you at least let me trim it? You have split ends. It looks shaggy.”  
  
She stared at him untrustingly. “Fine. But not too much!”  
  
He cut her hair into feathery, chin-length layers and even Jim had to admit it looked better.

* * *

Lieutenant Pike came back. “Hi, kids. How’re they doing, Boyce?”  
  
“Well, the Vulcan is fine, nothing a dermal regenerator couldn’t fix, but Jim on the other hand… It’s a bit more serious,” the doctor said. “He’s got severe lacerations all along his back and neck, a few on his upper thighs and those ones are severely infected, he’s—“  
  
“She,” Jim said.  
  
“What?”

“It’s she. Not he.”  
  
Boyce raised an eyebrow. “Alright, well, _she’s_ got micro bone fractures in the hands and feet from repeated electrocution, and there’s been some lung damage from the waterboarding. In addition, the kid’s starved half to death and suffering severe malnutrition. It’s going to be a long road to recovery. I’d give it about six months, a year.”  
  
“A _year_?!”  
  
He shrugged and packed away his medical equipment, moving onto members of the security squadron who had been injured in the firefight.  
  
“Sorry about that,” Pike said. “He can be a bit… much, sometimes.”  
  
Jim huffed. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”  
  
“Has anybody contacted your parents yet?”  
  
“I do not believe they have,” Spock said.  
  
“Don’t bother,” Jim said. “It’s not like my mom cares one way or the other.”  
  
“Hey. That’s not true. Your mother loves you,” Pike said.  
  
She looked at him. “She knowingly sent me to Tarsus IV,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to have anything to do with her. Don’t contact her. _Please_.”  
  
Pike looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, kid. But you’re a minor. I’m legally required to.”  
  
He left and went to do just that. Jim sagged against the biobed with a sigh. Spock looked at her curiously.  
  
“You asked me earlier if it was true that this had been prophesied,” xe said. “What did you mean?”  
  
“Earlier, Kodos was talking to me, and he said… that everyone knew this was going to happen. That they sent me to Tarsus anyway. That they let all those people starve to death because apparently I needed some trauma to shape me as a person.” She laughed bitterly. “This was all prophesied, Spock. They knew.”  
  
Spock was silent. For a long, long moment.  
  
“What do you intend to do?” xe asked.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Are you going to do as they wish and fulfill the prophecy?”  
  
“It doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.”  
  
“Jim,” xe said urgently. “Do not join Starfleet.”  
  
The idea hit her like dawn.

* * *

Winona pursed her lips and drove the aircar in silence back to the farmhouse. Jim sat in the passenger’s seat, glaring out the window.  
  
“I’m not joining Starfleet,” she said suddenly. “You can’t make me.”  
  
The aircar floated ungracefully to a halt as Winona slammed on the brakes. “ _What?!”_  
  
“I’m not joining Starfleet,” she repeated defiantly.  
  
“Yes, you are, Jim. Cut it out. You’re fulfilling the prophecy.”  
  
“No. I’m not,” she said. “Find someone else to be your precious hero.”  
  
“Jim,” she said, exhausted down to her bones and sick of this. “I am done putting up with this nonsense from you, okay? You’re joining Starfleet and that’s final.”  
  
“The Academy is for adults. Once I’m an adult, I can do what I want, and that includes not joining Starfleet.”  
  
“Yeah, well for now you’re my kid and you have to do what I say. I got you early admittance to the Academy. They have a program for especially gifted kids, apparently. You ship out in one week.”

* * *

“What is this about you applying to the Vulcan Science Academy?” Sarek asked. “You know you are destined to join Starfleet.”  
  
“I find that I am not inclined to do so,” Spock said.  
  
“Why,” Sarek demanded.  
  
“Starfleet personally harmed my t’hy’la and grossly mistreated Federation prisoners for its own purposes, proving itself to be a corrupt organization.”  
  
“Starfleet also rescued your t’hy’la when you yourself failed to do so.”  
  
“Attempting to correct one’s own error is not a cause for praise. It is the bare minimum expected.”  
  
“Spock, honey, don’t you want to be with Jim?” Amanda asked.  
  
“Jim is not joining Starfleet either.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
“At my suggestion.”  
  
“Spock,” Amanda gasped. “What have you done?”  
  
“My child,” Sarek. “Please, show honor to your clan and at least apply to Starfleet’s Academy. You do not have to accept admission. But please, apply.”  
  
Xe looked at xyr mother, who seemed so sad and hopeful, and nodded. “Very well.”

* * *

The Vulcan Science Academy denied xem admission.  
  
Spock applied to less prestigious facilities in Shi’Kahr. Xe was turned down at all of them.  
  
So xe broadened their possibilities and applied to universities all around Vulcan. Then off-world. Then xe tried to get a job without a degree. Xe lowered their standards significantly. Any job would do. Any.  
  
The only facility willing to accept xem in the entire Federation was Starfleet Academy. Xe suspected the Council had something to do with it. Xyr name and face made xem uneducable, unemployable. No one in their right mind would go against the biggest power bloc in the galaxy by trying to alter the prophecy. No one in their right mind would give Spock a way out.  
  
Xe had no alternatives.  
  
Xe stared blankly at the acceptance letter from Starfleet and resigned xemself to xyr fate.

* * *

Jim was given a heavy, advanced course load despite her young age and assigned as a roommate to Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, who was apparently a future important character in the stageplay that was her life.  
  
“You’re just a kid,” he said when he saw her.  
  
“Yeah. Early admit. My mom forced me to come here,” she said. She hefted her suitcase onto the bed and began unpacking, trying to hide a wince at the pain in her back.  
  
Apparently she didn’t hide it very well. “Are you injured?” McCoy asked, getting out a tricorder and scanning her with it.  
  
“You saw what happened, didn’t you? Everyone saw.”  
  
“Take off your shirt, I need to see if those wounds are infected.”  
  
“Um, no.”  
  
“What do you mean, no? What’s the big deal?”  
  
“I’m a girl. I’m not taking off my shirt in front of you.” It wasn’t like she actually had boobs or anything, but still.  
  
McCoy’s eyes softened. “You on hormones?”  
  
She shook her head. “Mom won’t let me. Says I don’t know what I’m talking about. That I was born to be a guy or whatever.”  
  
“If you could, would you want to take them?”  
  
Her eyes lit up. “Yes.”  
  
He nodded. “I’ll get you some,” he said. “Some parents don’t know what’s in their kids’ best interests, apparently. You’re a person, not an object they can just do whatever with. You own any training bras?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“I’ll take you shopping and get you some. Apparently they take some getting used to.”  
  
Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? Don’t you care about the prophecy? It said I’m supposed to be a dude.”  
  
“I don’t give a shit about the prophecy. I’ve got a daughter, and if she were in your position, I’d hope and pray that somebody did right by her, so I’m gonna make sure and do right by you.”  
  
“I’m not your daughter. You’re what, twenty-one? I don’t need anybody to be a parent to me. I can do just fine on my own.”  
  
“I know. I’m not gonna try and be your dad or whatever,” he said. “But maybe I can be your brother.”


	7. Arrival

“How’d your first day of classes go?” McCoy asked when she stormed into their dorm.  
  
“Sucked,” she said, dropping her bag on the ground with a loud thud.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“First of all, my stupid cadet uniform doesn’t fit because I’m a kid and underfed or whatever, so I have to roll up the sleeves and legs until they can special order me a new one, and it makes me A) look like a convict, and B) seem even younger than I actually am.”  
  
“How’s that a bad thing?”  
  
“Everyone treats me like I’m some fragile baby around here! I’m surprised my academic advisor didn’t wrap me in bubble wrap! Do you have any idea how many times she said I could come to her if the classes were too hard? Nine! Nine times!”  
  
“Kid, you’re gonna want to have people on your side. You’re gonna need it.”  
  
“No, I’m not! It’s just school! I can handle it the same as anyone else can.”  
  
“No, kid, it’s not ‘just school.’ This place is a military college, and you never even finished high school.”  
  
“I tested out of everything. I got my diploma.”  
  
“Wait, now that I think about it, did you even go to high school?”  
  
She shrugged. “Not really. Technically I made it to ninth grade on Tarsus, but that doesn’t really count.”  
  
McCoy muttered something under his breath about damn adults who think children are their own personal weapons and not fucking kids. Jim didn’t catch most of it.  
  
“Are you sticking to that eating plan I drew up for you? What’d you have for lunch?” he asked.  
  
“A salad,” she lied.  
  
McCoy nodded. “Good. Now I hear your hobgoblin’s in town, you wanna go see him?”  
  
“Xem.”  
  
“Oh. Shit, sorry. You wanna go see xem?”  
  
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

* * *

Spock felt as if xe had had several days packed into a single twenty-four hour period. As soon as xe had stepped off the shuttle from Vulcan, reporters had swarmed around xem, anxious to get shots of the cadet’s first day. The paparazzi had been barred from actually entering the campus, but the students themselves were hardly any better. Spock felt as though xe was walking around with a neon sign above xyr head. As if being a Vulcan among humans didn’t make xem stand out enough.  
  
Then xe had met with xyr academic advisor and been all but forced into taking a dual emphasis on both the science and command tracks, with a heavy course load on each. It was more classes than students were typically allowed to take, but they had made an exception for Spock without even asking xem.  
  
As a Vulcan, xe was expected to be able to handle it, and god help xem if xe couldn’t.  
  
Spock did the calculations and found that such a course load would be possible provided xe only allotted approximately 6.37 hours each day towards sleeping, eating, meditating, bathing, and other such activities. The rest of xyr time would be taken up with attending classes, doing work, and studying.  
  
It was possible. It was technically possible. Xe could handle it.  
  
Xe arrived at xyr assigned dorm to find two humans loitering outside its door.  
  
“There xe is!” Jim said, running up to xem and stopping herself just short of giving Spock a huge hug, for which xe was grateful.  
  
A camera flashed and Jim scowled.  
  
“Anyway,” she said. “Can we come into your dorm? We can help you get set up and stuff.”  
  
“I am not opposed to the idea.”  
  
She grinned. “Great!”

* * *

“So how come you’re here? Last I talked to you, you were pretty firmly opposed to the idea,” Jim said, sitting uselessly on the countertop following McCoy’s lengthy lecture about not putting undue strain on her body.  
  
“I found that I had no alternatives,” Spock said.  
  
“Seriously?”  
  
“Indeed. There was not a single university of repute within the whole of the Federation that was willing to accept me. I found myself to be virtually unemployable as well,” xe said. “It appears the Federation Council is quite determined to maintain a hold on their assets.”  
  
“Sick bastards,” McCoy. “Forcing damn kids into this nonsense. Neither of you have any place being here.”  
  
“I am not a child,” Spock said.  
  
“Yes you are.”  
  
“No, I am not. I am eighteen years old, and therefore above the age of majority.”  
  
“Yeah, well you’re still a kid.”  
  
“That is factually un—“  
  
“Guys,” Jim groaned. “You’re killing me here. Why don’t we all move on, huh? We should go do something!”

* * *

Going out and doing something was quickly ruled out as an option.  
  
Reporters were in a mob at the edge of campus, just waiting to get a shot of the three of them together and in their cadet uniforms. And then they quickly found a way of circumventing security by sending their camera in with a cadet, who they paid to take pictures for them.  
  
So that was how the three of them ended up holed up in Spock’s dorm playing go fish for the night.

* * *

6.37 hours was not a long time.  
  
Spock required at least an hour of meditation each day, more if xe was under excessive stress or experiencing strong emotions. Assuming it takes twenty minutes to eat a light meal and Spock eats twice a day, that would take up an additional forty minutes of xyr day. Plus ten minutes a day for a sonic shower and thirty minutes for various other daily ablutions. The walk between xyr dorm and xyr final and initial classes for the day took up a combined 24.8 minutes.  
  
Which left Spock with roughly 3.62 hours for sleep daily. Assuming xe fell asleep the second xe crawled in bed.  
  
Vulcans require little sleep. This was fine.  
  
Technically, Spock was half-human and Vulcans require an average of 5.05 hours of sleep per night, but those were inconsequential details. Spock was managing it.

* * *

Xe fell asleep in Advanced Astrometrics.  
  
“Spock!” the professor snapped, jolting xem awake. “A word, if you please?”  
  
The students all filed out as the class ended, and Spock gathered xyr textbooks and went to stand by the professor’s desk. “What is the matter you wished to discuss with me?” xe asked politely.  
  
“You fell asleep in my class.”  
  
“I know. You have my sincerest apologies.”  
  
“I know astrometrics isn’t the most interesting course, but I at least expect my students to be awake and alert. Since you weren’t, I’m going to have to mark you as absent for the day. You’ll be losing ten participation points.”  
  
“I did not fall asleep out of boredom. I assure you I meant no disrespect, Professor Valdez.”  
  
“I frankly don’t care, Spock. Actions speak louder than words in this instance. Don’t let it happen again.”  
  
“It will not, I swear it.”  
  
“Good. Dismissed.” He went back to grading papers.

* * *

The press was having a field day with the prophesied heroes finally going to the Academy. Jim’s only consolation was they wouldn’t be able to take pics once they were in space.  
  
Her classmates wouldn’t stop taking pictures of her.  
  
There was a particularly unflattering one of her yawning in the cafeteria going around.  
  
The photo of her catching sight of Spock while waiting outside xyr dorm practically made headlines of its own. Jim’s face had lit up when their eyes had locked, and apparently the press decided she looked ‘lovestruck,’ which, whatever. She was not. She was just excited to see her friend.  
  
And then there was the photo of her pulling Spock and McCoy by the wrists on their failed attempt at leaving campus grounds. They decided that didn’t scream ‘overexcited kid,’ but rather, was very leaderly of her.  
  
The press was not smart.  
  
But they were crafty, Jim admitted begrudgingly, staring down at a tell-all news article. She had made the foolish mistake of assuming the nice girl in her xenolinguistics class had been talking to her because she was friendly, not because she was wearing a recording device and earning a credit for every word Jim said.  
  
At least she hadn’t said anything too revealing. It wasn’t the most embarrassing story a ‘friend’ had ever sold the press, unfortunately.  
  
She was frankly surprised they still expected her to be a hero after watching her every childhood moment in the spotlight like that. Wonders never ceased.  
  
She was just about to exit her news app when a notification for a new story popped up.  
  
STARFLEET OVERWORKS SPOCK, CAUSES VULCAN TO PASS OUT  
  
She fumbled for her comm and pressed in xyr number. It rang. It rang.  
  
Spock didn’t pick up.  
  
She clicked on the article. She couldn’t believe _this_ was how she had to get news about her friend.  
  
_Today at 10:42 a.m., Spock of Vulcan collapsed from exhaustion in the main courtyard of Starfleet Academy campus. He was promptly carried away by paramedics to Starfleet Medical. Witnesses say—_  
  
Jim closed the padd and took off running.

* * *

She burst into the hospital room. “Spock!”  
  
“Shhh!” McCoy hissed. “You’re gonna wake xem up.”  
  
“What happened?” she whispered.  
  
“Apparently the admiralty forgot that Vulcans aren’t fucking robots and piled so much work onto xem that the hobgoblin damn near killed xemself trying to do it all.”  
  
“What?! Xe never said anything.”  
  
“I know,” McCoy said grimly. “Fortunately, they made me xyr attending physician. I’m having xyr entire schedule reworked for medical purposes. The admiralty’s gonna have to run every course they give xem past me first.”  
  
“Good.” Jim nodded. “Good.”  
  
“Don’t worry, kid. I won’t let anyone hurt your bondmate.”  
  
Her face burned. “We aren’t bonded yet. We actually have no intention to go through with it. We both wanna choose our own spouse.”  
  
“Really? I thought Vulcans took that whole t’hy’la thing pretty seriously.”  
  
“Yeah, but—“ Now that she thought about it, Spock had never said anything about wanting to be with someone else. Xe had only said xe would respect Jim’s decision to.  
  
Her brow furrowed and McCoy frowned at her.

* * *

They both decided to stay the night in the hospital and wait for Spock to wake up. Jim promptly fell asleep curled up in a plastic chair, so McCoy was the only one awake when Spock rose.  
  
And of course the Vulcan insisted that Jim not be woken.  
  
“What happened?” xe asked quietly.  
  
“You passed out,” McCoy said, equally quiet. “You’re severely sleep deprived. You were pushing yourself way too hard. And don’t give me any BS about Vulcan stamina. Even Vulcans have limits. You should have said something.”  
  
“To what end?”  
  
“To prevent this from happening! You ended up in the hospital, Spock!”  
  
“I am fine.”  
  
“Fine. Fine. Whatever happened to Vulcans not being able to lie?”  
  
“I did not lie. Fine has variable definitions.”  
  
McCoy rolled his eyes. “Well, it won’t happen again, at least. I’m changing your schedule.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard me. The pace you were going at was unsustainable.”  
  
“I did not choose it.”  
  
“Of course you didn’t. Not even a flat-out masochist would. But either way, I’m putting an end to it.”  
  
Spock blinked drowsily in the darkness. “Thank you, doctor.”


	8. Prophecy Day

It was Prophecy Day.  
  
It was Jim’s birthday. It was the anniversary of George Kirk’s death.  
  
Winona and Jim were the only people in the world who never felt like celebrating. Prophecy Day sucked, in Jim’s eyes. The only reason she hadn’t been carted around to various televised galas these past few years was because she’d been stuck on Tarsus IV.  
  
Now she had the excuse of schoolwork keeping her busy.  
  
She got a second comm with a number she only gave to Spock and Bones, the only two people she trusted not to sell it. She didn’t answer her other comm for the entire leading up to Prophecy Day. It was all news networks. Everybody wanted her to give an interview.  
  
The worst part was that the Academy was putting on a big thing for it and all but begged her to attend.  
  
She almost said yes. Then she learned it was formal attire only, and no, uniforms did not count.  
  
“What, do you not own any fancy clothes? I can take you shopping,” Bones said.  
  
“No, it’s not that, it’s…” she sighed. “Everyone’ll expect me to wear a suit. And if I wear a dress, then it’ll be this whole big thing, and everyone will ask questions, and I—I don’t know if I’m ready to come out to the entire Federation yet.”  
  
Bones nodded. “If you don’t wanna go, then don’t go. I can stay in with you.”  
  
“Thanks Bones. But no. Go. Enjoy the party.” She smiled.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yes, I’m sure.”  
  
He looked at her inspectingly. “Okay. But if you change your mind, you comm me, understand?”  
  
“I will.”  
  
“Promise?”  
  
“Promise, Bones.”

* * *

Bones left with his date, a nice blonde  lady named Christine.  
  
And then Jim was alone.  
  
She got a message from Sam. It was the first interaction she’d had with him since he’d left that day when she was twelve. God, he’d be how old now? Nineteen? Practically an old man. She’d be sure to tease him about that in her response.  
  
She clicked open the message.  
  
_Hey, kiddo. Just writing to check in. I know Prophecy Day is always hard on you and Mom, and I want to make sure you’re doing alright. Sorry it’s been so long. I meant to write way earlier, but they wouldn’t let me while you were on Tarsus. They thought I’d find a way to warn you somehow._  
  
I hear you’re in Starfleet now, fulfilling the prophecy and all that jazz. Good for you. I know you’ll do well, kiddo. Just hang in there. No matter how hard it gets, always remember that you can—and have—done it.  
  
Anyway, I’ve been dating this girl, Aurelan. I’m gonna propose to her. No sense wasting time when life is so short, right? She’s a fellow research biologist here on Deneva. We’re in the same internship program. That’s how we met.  
  
I guess I told you this kind of backwards, but I’m a biologist now, getting my degree and working a part-time internship. I love it. Deneva is great.  
  
You should come visit sometime. My door is always open, whenever you want.  
  
Love,  
  
Sam  
  
She closed the message and wiped her nose off on her sleeve, sniffling. God, she was pathetic. It was just a letter. She would see Sam again before he died. The prophecy had said so.  
  
She gets to see him at least one more time.  
  
But Jim knew a secret the Federation would kill to keep under wraps: the prophecy was frequently wrong.  
  
She hugged her knees to her chest, still sitting in the spinny chair in front of the computer. She hated Prophecy Day. Hated it, hated it, hated it.  
  
She was still wallowing in self-pity when the door chime rang.  
  
“Who is it?” she asked.  
  
“Spock.”  
  
“Oh. Enter.”  
  
The door swooshed open to admit xem.  
  
Xe was wearing a trim black suit and silk gloves, like some sort of fairytale prince or something and it had never occurred to Jim before but now she realized, oh hey. Spock was hot.  
  
She beat that thought back with a stick. Absolutely not. She was not going there.  
  
“I understand that there is a Prophecy Day ball in the courtyard. Would you care to accompany me?”  
  
Fear spiked through her chest. “Like as a date?”  
  
She saw a flicker of shock pass through Spock’s face, which meant xe had reacted as strongly as her, if not moreso. Jim suppressed a sigh of relief.  
  
“That was not my intention,” Spock said, unnecessarily at this point.  
  
“Okay. Good. Just making sure,” she said. “Um, I wasn’t really planning on going.”  
  
“Whyever not?”  
  
“I’d have to wear a suit.”  
  
“I was under the impression there was no such rule. I saw many humans wearing dresses there.”  
  
She smiled a bit. “Well, yeah. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. See, Earth isn’t like Vulcan. On Vulcan, you have your school dresses and your unisex robes and everybody wears the exact same thing. But on Earth, clothes are gendered.”  
  
“I am aware of that,” xe said, sounding miffed. Then understanding lit their eyes. “I see. Wearing a dress would be announcing your breakage from how the prophecy played out. You fear repercussions.”  
  
“What? No,” she said. “And what do you mean, announcing a breaking?”  
  
“By ‘coming out,’ as you say it, as transgender, some might assume that you do not intend to fulfill the prophecy at all.”  
  
“I don’t. I’m only here ‘cause I have to be,” she said. “You think if I came out they would finally get the picture?”  
  
Spock hesitated. “It is possible it would be perceived as rebellion by some. However, I am not sure if that would be good thing.”  
  
She laughed. “It’s worth a shot.”  
  
“Jim,” xe said. “You must be prepared for a negative reaction.”  
  
“A negative reaction is what I’m going for, Spock.”

* * *

Xyr t’hy’la was far braver than xe was, Spock decided, as Jim proudly walked out of the department store in a blue chiffon dress and combat boots. Reporters audibly gasped at the sight of her. Cameras zoomed in on them, lights flashing in their faces.  
  
Jim held her head high and walked straight towards the Academy courtyard, Spock at her side.  
  
Xe was frankly in awe.  
  
The reporters were yelling questions at them. Jim had been ignoring them so far, but now she paused. She turned on her heel and flashed the cameras her most charming smile.  
  
“I have an announcement to make,” she said, perfectly aware that those feeds were streaming live across dozens, hundreds of planets right that second. “My name is Jim Kirk and I am transgender.”

* * *

They stole the floor away at the ball. Jim gave an impromptu speech on acceptance and choosing your own destiny. Spock was amazed by her, amazed by everything about her.  
  
They danced until the night ended, knowing full well they would be exhausted for their early morning classes and not caring a single bit.

* * *

There was no negative reaction.  
  
Or, well, there was, but it paled in comparison to the overwhelmingly positive and accepting reaction.  
  
The logic was that they already knew nothing was going to follow the prophecy quite perfectly. After all, knowing about the future inherently changes how you react to it. And besides, they had already known there were a few differences between the universes. Jim’s eye color was different. Jim’s gender was different. But Jim, fundamentally, was still the same person.  
  
She had never expected this.  
  
For the first time in her life, the prophecy didn’t feel like chains restricting her.  
  
She felt _free_.


	9. Joanna, Finnegan, Ruth

Spock entered xyr t’hy’la’s dorm to study and was immediately greeted by the sound of a toddler babbling.  
  
“Spock! Oh my god, come over here! You have to meet Joanna!” Jim called. Spock obediently followed the sound of the commotion.  
  
McCoy was holding a small human child, a fond smile on his face that Spock had never seen before. The child was cooing and gurgling happily. Jim was gushing over her with the widest smile on her face.  
  
“Spock, isn’t she just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life?”  
  
“The child is aesthetically pleasing.” Which Jim interpreted as Vulcan for _hell yes._  
  
“This is Joanna,” Bones said. “My daughter. She’s just a few months shy of turning two. She stays with me on the weekends.”  
  
“Why only then?” Spock asked.  
  
“’Cuz that’s the custody arrangement. I’m lucky I get that, to be honest. That’s the reason I joined up. My ex-wife is a shark of a lawyer, and she would’ve gotten sole custody, but I offered to join Starfleet if I could get partial. The judge didn’t want to be the one person to screw up the prophecy, and so he agreed.”  
  
“And that’s why Bones is the only ‘Fleet cadet in the entire world who hates space,” Jim said affectionately. “Can I hold her?”  
  
“Sure. Be careful. Don’t drop her,” McCoy said, transferring the child into Jim’s arms.  
  
“I won’t,” she said quietly, looking down at the kid in wonder. Joanna reached up with grabby hands to try and catch locks of Jim’s hair to play with, and she laughed. “She’s here every single weekend?”  
  
“Yep. And every other Christmas too. She’ll be with me next year.”  
  
“That’s so great,” she said. “I love her already. Wait! What happens when you go in space?”  
  
McCoy’s face darkened. “Then I’ll see here whenever we’re close enough to Earth for her to beam up.”  
  
Jim looked at the squirming bundle in her arms with newfound sadness. “Well, since I’m gonna be captain, that means I’m in charge of everything—“  
  
“I know. Lord help us.”  
  
“—and I’ll make sure that happens often. Kids shouldn’t grow up without their dad.”  
  
His face seemed to crumble even further. “I know.”  
  
Jim swallowed. “Sorry,” she said. “Um, Spock. Do you want to hold her?”  
  
“I find it agreeable.”  
  
Jim passed the toddler off, and Spock sat down on the couch with her in xyr lap. Joanna cooed and actually snuggled up right next to xem, perfectly content.  
  
“Aww, she likes you,” Jim said.  
  
“It would appear so,” Spock agreed, unable to suppress the slight upturning of xyr lips.

* * *

They fell into a new routine. Spock was dropped down to a single emphasis. Xe was focusing solely on the science track now, and taking half as many courses—only a few more than most other students. Xe finally felt like xe could breathe. It was such a huge relief.  
  
Xe expressed xyr gratitude to the doctor no less than nineteen times, at which point McCoy began to issue threats should xe do it again.  
  
Jim still didn’t trust her classmates for anything and refused to let anybody get close to her, despite what seemed to be the entire student body’s best efforts. Well, whatever. She was fine. She had Spock and Bones. And Joanna on weekends, whom she loved and adored.  
  
Their dorm had acquired a small collection of toys and stuffed animals that were kept in a closet and brought out every weekend. Spock also seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time over there on the weekends.  
  
Jim felt better than she had even those first two years on Tarsus. Sixteen was going to be good year for her, she could tell.

* * *

“I can’t fucking believe that,” Bones said, following her out of the academic hearing. “You can get away with anything. Any other student would’ve been expelled.”  
  
Jim shrugged. “You can’t say I didn’t give it my best shot.”  
  
“You take the Kobayashi Maru three years in a row, you fucking _cheat_ on it—“  
  
“I didn’t cheat. I changed the parameters of the test. The test was a cheat.”  
  
”That is… bullshit.”  
  
She grinned. “The admiralty didn’t seem to think so.”

* * *

She and Spock could’ve easily graduated in three years, especially given how hard they were working. The Enterprise was waiting for them. Apparently, Pike was its captain now, but was ready and willing to hand the ship over for the sake of the prophecy. He would be given a new ship of his choosing immediately.  
  
“So I’m thinking of switching tracks,” Jim said, her head resting in Spock’s lap while xe attempted to read from a textbook.  
  
“Hm,” xe hummed noncommittally. “To what?”  
  
“Science,” she said. “I came here just a few weeks before turning sixteen, and it’s been three and a half years. I can only hold off graduation for one more semester. Unless I switch tracks.”  
  
“Do you intend to graduate from the science track?”  
  
“No, I intend to milk that for as long as I can and then switch back to command at the last second to finish up.”  
  
“For what purpose?”

She sighed. “I just don’t feel like I’m ready to run a starship yet, y’know? I’m only nineteen. I get that they’ve been, like, _grooming_ me for this my entire life, but still. I’m not ready.”  
  
Spock nodded. “It is logical to wait until you are. The Enterprise will still be there when you feel you are ready to take it.”  
  
“Yeah,” she said. “Bones is still working on his second doctorate, and at the pace his research is going, I think he’s got four or five more years left. What about you? What are you gonna do?”

“What do you mean?”  
  
“Are you gonna head straight to the Enterprise? And just… wait for us, I guess?”  
  
“No. I am still displeased at having been forced to join Starfleet in the first place. Following graduation, I intend to take a position as a professor here at the Academy.”  
  
Jim sat up. “Are you gonna break the prophecy?”  
  
Spock blinked. “I was under the impression that you wished to do so, too.”  
  
“I mean, yeah, when I was kid, but… There’s a lot of lives on the line, Spock,” she said. “And… I know I threw a big fit about forced or whatever, but I genuinely do want to see the stars. I want to explore, Spock. I want to get away from all of this. Don’t you?”  
  
“…Yes.”  
  
“You aren’t gonna make me do this alone, are you?”  
  
“No,” xe said vehemently. “That was never my intention. If you wish to sail the stars, then I shall be at your side.”  
  
“I’m not… I’m not pressuring you into something you don’t want, am I?”  
  
“Jim,” Spock said. “I wish to see the stars as well. My only problem was with the coercion. I would follow you across the galaxy, gladly.”  
  
She blushed and shoved at xyr shoulder. “You’re a great friend.”  
  
Xyr mouth twitched. “As are you,” xe said.

* * *

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t little Princess Jamie,” Finnegan said, sauntering up. Jim rolled her eyes.  
  
“What do you want, Finnegan?” she asked.  
  
“Nothing.” He spread his hands out innocently. “Just coming to say hi. Check out how the ‘Fleet’s little princess is doing. I mean, it must be hard, having everything handed to you like that.”  
  
“I work for my accomplishments.”  
  
“Sure you do. But you couldn’t fail a class if you tried. And apparently, it doesn’t even matter if you cheat, like on the Kobayashi Maru, because the little princess gets away with everything.”  
  
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“Oh, I think I do,” he said. “I think you’re a spoiled little _bitch_ who does whatever she wants and hasn’t worked a day in her life, while the rest of us scrabble like losers and know that the place at the very top is already spoken for.” He shoved her. She glared.  
  
She wasn’t going to start a fight. She wasn’t going to prove him right.  
  
“You and your half-breed little boyfriend—“  
  
She punched him.

* * *

“Jim,” Pike pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is the third fight you’ve gotten in this semester. If you get in another, I’m gonna have no choice but to put you on academic suspension.”  
  
“But Finnegan started it!”  
  
“Did he? Because I’ve got witnesses saying you threw the first punch.”  
  
“I was provoked! And he shoved me before that.”  
  
“Really? Why?”  
  
“Why do you assume it’s my fault? He was the one who made it physical.”  
  
“Because I know you, Jim. Now why did he shove you?”  
  
“Because he’s an ass. He called me a bitch and said I got everything handed to me ‘cuz of the prophecy. And that’s not true! I work hard.”  
  
“I know, I know. Now listen. I’m gonna let you off with a warning, but this is your last one. Understand?”  
  
“But I didn’t do anything!”  
  
“Jim,” Pike said. “Do you understand?”  
  
She seethed. “Yes, sir.”

* * *

Ruth was a blonde lab tech in the Galactic Agriculture and Botany class that Jim was TA for. She was brilliant and gorgeous and working on creating a fungus-resistant pesticide for use on colonial farming settlements and Jim fell hard.  
  
She wasn’t surprised when Ruth asked her out. But Ruth was certainly surprised when Jim said yes.  
  
Jim never said yes to dates.  
  
The media had a goddamn conniption. Jim and Spock had to give a total of eleven TV interviews so that Jim would stop getting hatemail from people who thought she was screwing with the prophecy/cheating on Spock.  
  
The media only calmed down marginally.  
  
People really didn’t want to accept that they were just friends. Jim had to say ‘for now’ about a billion times, when what she wanted to say was ‘forever.’  
  
She actually fell in love with Ruth. Deeply in love. Head-over-heels, completely helpless and lost in love. She was a goner not eight months into their relationship.  
  
She wanted to marry this girl.

* * *

She took her out to dinner at a ridiculously fancy restaurant on their one-year anniversary. She was nervous. That was stupid. It was just a question. She’d faced down far scarier things than this. She was Jim Kirk. She was a hero.  
  
She should not be this nervous over asking a stupid question.  
  
She felt a bit like she was going to throw up, and swallowed hard.  
  
She waited until they were done with dessert but the check hadn’t arrived yet. She got down on one knee and pulled out a ring.  
  
Ruth put a hand over her mouth.  
  
“Ruth,” Jim said, heart hammering loudly in her chest. She felt breathless. She felt like she was flying and falling at the same time. “Will you marry me?”  
  
“Oh, Jim,” she said. She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, I can’t.”  
  
Time stopped. Jim’s breath caught in her throat. “What?”  
  
“I can’t marry you. I thought you knew that. This was always going to be temporary. Jim, the prophecy—“  
  
“Screw the prophecy!” She had the full attention of the dead-silent restaurant now. “I love you!”  
  
“But what about Spock?”  
  
“Xe’s just my friend!” she said. “Look. On that first day that we were betrothed, we made a deal. We both wanted to choose our own spouse, and so we agreed to break the bond once we became adults. I’ve already talked to xem about this, and xe’s fine with it. Ruth, please. Marry me.”  
  
“I’m sorry, Jim.” She stood and took hold of her purse. “I’m sorry.”  
  
And then she was gone, leaving Jim alone at their table, two dozen cameras pointed at her face while she tried to blink away tears.

* * *

Bones held her while she cried that night, until she fell asleep against him. He wrapped her in a blanket and stayed where he was, supporting her.

* * *

“Do you still wish to break our betrothal bond?” Spock asked.  
  
“Yes,” Jim said firmly.

* * *

She was twenty-one now, a grown woman. She was no longer that stick-thin, twiggy fifteen-year-old from her first days at the Academy. She had put on a lot of weight, and she looked good. She was finally healthy. She even had curves.  
  
She drank. She slept around. She went to parties. She was a bit late to her teenage rebellious phase, but damn, she was determined to have one. She could be the perfect role model captain later. For now, she wanted to be the teenager that she had gotten to be.  
  
Whose brilliant idea had it been to put her in college at fifteen anyway?  
  
She didn’t care. She drank, she danced, she kissed girls, and she didn’t care.  
  
It didn’t matter. Who wanted to be a teenager anyway? She had been forced to be an adult way back on Tarsus. Jim Kirk had grown up way too fast. She was determined to make up for lost time.  
  
It didn’t matter. And she didn’t care.


	10. Nero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much drama just disappears if everyone just assumes right from the get go that Jim should be captain lol

“—And a shot of jack, straight up,” the woman said.  
  
“Make that two. Her shot’s on me,” Jim said.  
  
“Her shots on her. Thanks but no thanks.”  
  
“Don’t you at least want to know my name before you completely reject me?” she said, complete with the pouty lip that Gaila said made her look irresistible.  
  
“I’m fine without it.”  
  
She grinned. It was almost too easy. “You are fine without it. It’s Jim, Jim Kirk.”  
  
She very carefully did not react to that, staring down at the counter and waiting for her drinks to come.  
  
It wasn’t like Jim used her name to pick up girls. And guys, occasionally. On the contrary, actually, most people found the betrothed-since-age-seven thing a dealbreaker. But Jim was upfront about who she was and what she wanted. People heard her name and instantly knew that this would be no strings attached and nothing permanent. It forewent the need for any awkward conversations in the morning.  
  
Jim had learned her lesson. No one was going to marry her. She was undateable.  
  
But she could still have fun.  
  
“If you don’t tell me your name, I’m gonna have to make one up,” she warned.  
  
“It’s Uhura,” she said, still not interested.  
  
“Uhura? No way! That’s the name I was gonna make up for you,” she said. “Uhura what?”  
  
“Just Uhura.”  
  
“They don’t have last names in your world?”  
  
“Uhura is my last name.”  
  
“Well, they don’t have first names in your world?”  
  
She smiled and shook her head, rolling her eyes. Perfect. Jim moved to be closer to her.  
  
“So, you’re a cadet, you’re studying, what’s your focus?” she asked.  
  
“Xenolinguistics. You have no idea what that means.”  
  
“The study of alien languages. Morphology, phonology, syntax. It means you’ve got a talented tongue.”  
  
The cadet turned to face her, suddenly serious, suddenly interested, and _there_ , Jim had her.  
  
“I’m impressed,” Uhura said with a seductive smile. “For a moment there, I thought you were just a dumb hick who only had sex with farm animals.”  
  
“Well, not only,” Jim said, leaning against the bar. And she laughed, and it was beautiful. Jim grinned.  
  
Another large male cadet approached. “Not to interrupt girls' night or anything,” he said, with a thin, condescending smile towards Jim. She returned it. “But I was wondering if maybe you’d like some real company.”  
  
“Thanks, but I’m good,” Uhura said.  
  
“Oh, I believe it,” Jim said.  
  
“Hey. You better mind your manners.”  
  
“Relax, cupcake, it was a joke.” She clapped him on the shoulder dismissively.  
  
“Hey. Farm girl. Maybe you can’t count, but there are four of us and one of you.”  
  
“So get some more guys and then it’ll be an even fight.” She gave a sharp-edged grin and patted his cheek affectionately.  
  
The next thing she knew, she was flopped halfway over the bar and her cheek hurt like hell.  
  
She returned the punch in the cadet’s stomach and sent him flying backwards. They hadn’t had her take all those advanced combat classes for nothing.  
  
But in the end, it was four on one, and all of them had a good fifty pounds on her. She was lifted up off the floor and slammed down onto a table, one of the cadets pounding her face in mercilessly.  
  
A shrill whistle.  
  
There stood Pike in his professor’s black uniform. “Outside, all of you. Now!”

* * *

“What’s wrong with you, kid? You’re better than this,” Pike said. Jim stuffed tissues up her bloody nose.  
  
“Maybe I’m not,” she said.  
  
“Yes, you are. Why do you keep doing this? Do you want to get expelled?”  
  
She shrugged. “Maybe I do.”  
  
Pike sighed. “The drinking and the partying—it has to stop. I have high expectations of you, kid.”  
  
“Yeah? You and everybody else,” she said. “What if I can’t fulfill them? What if I just flat out cannot fulfill the prophecy? I’m no hero, Pike! I’m barely a person. You put all this trust in me, you’re just going to end up disappointed.”  
  
“Is that what this is about? You’re worried about fulfilling the prophecy?”  
  
She rolled her eyes.  
  
“Listen, kid, we all know you can do it—“  
  
“Yeah, you knew a lot of things, didn’t you? Knew all about Tarsus IV and sent me there anyway.”  
  
Pike drew in a breath and straightened. “I wasn’t in charge of that decision.”  
  
“I don’t care who individually decided that I should be starved in order to grow as a person. Every single person who had the chance to warn me and didn’t is just as guilty.”  
  
“Admiral Marcus.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Admiral Marcus made the decision.”  
  
Jim’s blood ran cold.  
  
She had assumed it was a group decision, made by the Federation Council or Starfleet’s admiralty. To know that it boiled down to one person, one person who had the opportunity to say no and…  
  
Tamara would still be alive. Angela. Johnny. Ms. Peters. God knows what had happened to Lenore. The four thousand adult colonists Kodos had killed would still be dead, but they would have died more humanely, by lethal injection rather than phaser shots.  
  
She supposed four thousand was a small price to pay to save eleven billion and then some.  
  
One person had gotten to make that decision. Just one.  
  
Pike was talking again but now Jim wasn’t listening, too caught up in her own head.

* * *

“Jim,” Gaila moaned. “I think I love you.”  
  
And Jim did not have an irrational fear of those words and so she did not react with her first instinct, which was panicked shrieking. Instead, she—very calmly—went with the second worst option and said, “That is so weird.”  
  
“Lights,” Gaila said. “Did you just say that is so weird? You don’t love me too?”  
  
She was definitely not panicking.  
  
“Oh my god, my roommate!” Gaila said, glancing towards the door.  
  
“I thought you said she was gone for the night,” Jim said, relieved at the change in topic.  
  
“Obviously she’s not. Quick, get under the bed. She can’t see you.”  
  
“Why not?”

“’Cuz I promised her I’d stop bringing girls back to the room.”  
  
“Really? Wow, how many girls have you—“  
  
“Just down! Down!” she hissed, and Jim dropped under the bed.

* * *

Everyone’s comms went off at once.  
  
“We have received a distress call from Vulcan. With our primary fleet engaged in the Laurentian system, I hereby order all cadets to report to Hangar One immediately. Dismissed.”  
  
Every cadet in the classroom leapt up as one, and the professors went as well. Jim followed Spock and Pike straight to the Enterprise.  
  
Pike sat down in the captain’s chair. “Sorry, cadet. But we need an experienced captain for this mission.”  
  
“Understood, sir,” Jim said. She stood behind him as First Officer and Spock went to the science station.

* * *

“May I have your attention please?” Ensign Chekov asked over the ship’s intercom. “At 2200 hours, telemetry detected an anomaly in the Neutral Zone. What appeared to be a lightning storm in space. Soon after, Starfleet received a distress signal from the Vulcan High Command that their planet was experiencing seismic activity. Our mission is to assess the condition of Vulcan and assist in evacuations, if necessary. We should be arriving at Vulcan within three minutes. Thank you for your time.”  
  
Spock looked as tense as Jim had ever seen xem, no doubt seeming perfectly calm to anyone who didn’t know xem, however.  
  
“Lightning storm,” Jim murmured. “We gotta stop the ship!”  
  
“What?” Pike asked.  
  
“We’re flying into a trap! Vulcan isn’t experiencing a natural disaster. It’s being attacked by Romulans.”  
  
“Romulans?” Pike asked incredulously. Disbelievingly.  
  
“Look, sir, that same anomaly that we saw today—“  
  
“You are recommending a full stop mid-warp during a rescue mission?” Spock asked. Every second counted. Xyr mother was in danger. And Jim was trying to prevent Spock from rescuing her.  
  
Xe had never before felt anger towards xyr t’hy’la, not even when she dissolved their preliminary bond.  
  
“It’s not a rescue mission. Listen to me, it’s an attack.”  
  
“Based on what facts?” Spock all but snapped.  
  
“That same anomaly, the lightning storm in space that we saw today, occurred on the date of my birth, before a Romulan ship attacked the USS Kelvin. You know that, sir, I read your dissertation. That ship, which had formidable and advanced weaponry, was never seen or heard from again. The Kelvin attack took place on the edge of Klingon space, and at 2300 hours last night, there was an attack. Forty-seven Klingon warbirds destroyed by Romulans, sir, and it was reported that the Romulans were in one ship, one massive ship.”  
  
“And you know of this Klingon attack how?” Pike asked. Jim looked to Uhura.  
  
“Sir, I intercepted and translated the message myself. Kirk’s report is accurate,” she said.  
  
“We’re warping into a trap, sir. The Romulans are waiting for us, I promise you that,” Jim said.  
  
“The cadet’s logic is sound,” Spock said, and she gave xem a small smile. “And Lieutenant Uhura is unmatched in xenolinguistics. We would be wise to accept her conclusion.”  
  
Pike nodded. “Scan Vulcan space. Check for any transmissions in Romulan.”

* * *

The Romulan ship didn’t take the kill shot. Instead, it hailed them.  
  
“Hello.” A Romulan’s tattooed face appeared on the viewscreen.  
  
“I’m Captain Christopher Pike. To whom am I speaking?”  
  
“Hi, Christopher. I’m Nero.”  
  
“You’ve declared war against the Federation. Withdraw, and I’ll agree to arrange a conference with Romulan leadership at a neutral location.”  
  
“I do not speak for the Empire. We stand apart. As does your Vulcan crewmember. Isn’t that right, Spock?”  
  
All eyes on the bridge snapped to the science station. Spock stood. “Pardon me, I do not believe that you and I are acquainted.”  
  
“No, we’re not. Not yet,” Nero said. “Spock, there’s something I’d like you to see. Captain Pike, your transporter has been disabled. As you can see by the rest of your armada, you have no choice. You will man a shuttle and come aboard the Narada for negotiations. That is all.”  
  
The transmission cut out and silence rang.  
  
“He’ll kill you. You know that,” Jim said.  
  
“Your survival is unlikely,” Spock said.  
  
“Captain, we gain nothing by diplomacy. Going over to that ship is a mistake.”  
  
“I, too, agree. You should rethink your strategy.”  
  
“I understand that,” Pike said. “I need officers who’ve been trained in advanced hand-to-hand combat.”  
  
“I have training, sir,” Sulu said.  
  
“Come with me. Kirk, you too.”

* * *

Kirk and Sulu dropped onto the transporter pad, bloody and panting.  
  
“Thanks,” Sulu said.  
  
“No problem.”  
  
Spock rushed into the room. “Clear the pad. I’m beaming to the surface.”  
  
“The surface of what?” Jim asked. “What, are you going down there? Are you nuts?”  
  
Xe finished adjusting xyr equipment and assumed a crouched position.  
  
“Spock, you can’t do that!”  
  
“Energize.”  
  
“Spock!”

* * *

Spock appeared back on the transporter pad, hand outstretched, face crushed and breathing ragged.  
  
No.  
  
_No_.  
  
_**No!**_

* * *

“We must gather with the rest of Starfleet to balance the terms of the next engagement,” Spock said.  
  
“There won’t be a next engagement. By the time we’ve gathered, it’ll be too late,” Jim insisted.  
  
“We should plot a course for the Laurentian system.”  
  
“No. Don’t do that,” Kirk told the helmsman. “Running back to the rest of the ‘Fleet for a confab is a massive waste of time.”  
  
“Those were Captain Pike’s final orders before leaving the ship.”  
  
“He also ordered us to go back and get him.”  
  
They stared at each other for a long, tense moment.  
  
Jim sat down in the captain’s chair. “Sulu, plot a course for Earth.”

* * *

“Speak your mind, Spock,” Sarek said.  
  
“That would be unwise.”  
  
“What is necessary is never unwise.”  
  
“I am as conflicted as I once was as a child,” xe said.  
  
“You will always be a child of two worlds,” he said. “I am grateful for this. And for you.”  
  
“I feel anger for the one who took Mother’s life. An anger I cannot control.”  
  
“I believe that she would say, ‘do not try to.’ You asked me once why I married her. I married her because I loved her.”

* * *

“Mr. Chekov is correct. I can confirm his telemetry,” Spock said. “If Mr. Sulu is able to maneuver us into position, I can beam aboard Nero’s ship, steal back the black hole device and, if possible, bring back Captain Pike.”  
  
Jim shook her head. “I won’t allow you to do that, Spock.”  
  
“Romulans and Vulcans share a common ancestry. Our cultural similarities will make it easier for me to access the ship’s computer to locate the device,” xe said. “Also, my mother was human, which makes Earth the only home I have left.”  
  
Jim stepped forward until they were mere inches apart. “Then I’m coming with you.”  
  
“I would cite regulation, but I know you would simply ignore it.”  
  
She gave a slow smile. “You got me there, Mx. Spock.”

* * *

“If there’s any common sense in the enemy ship’s design, I should be putting you somewhere in the cargo bay,” Scotty said.  
  
“Energize,” Kirk said.  
  
They materialized right on the bridge.  
  
_Fuck_.  
  
It was all phaserfire and running after that.  
  
“Go. I’ll cover you,” Jim said.  
  
“Are you certain?”  
  
“Yeah, I got you.” She flicked her phaser to the kill setting.

* * *

“I foresee a complication,” Spock said. “The design of their ship is far more advanced than I had anticipated.”  
  
“Voice print and face recognition analysis enabled. Welcome back, Ambassador Spock.”  
  
Xe frowned in confusion and Jim’s mind raced at a million miles an hour.  
  
“The prophecy,” she said. “This must be the ship the prophecy came in on. You’ll be able to fly it, right?”  
  
Xe nodded. “I should be.”  
  
“Good. Good luck.”  
  
“Jim,” xe said. “The statistical likelihood that our plan will succeed is less than 4.3%.”  
  
“It’ll work.”  
  
“In the event that I do not return, I want you to know that—“  
  
“Spock!” she said. “It’ll work.”

* * *

Jim crept in with her phaser drawn.  
  
There.  
  
Nero.  
  
“Nero, order your men to disable the drill or I will—“  
  
Get punched straight in the face and fall sprawled on the floor.  
  
Nero looked remarkably unimpressed and walked over slowly. Carelessly.  
  
“I know your face from Earth’s history,” he said. He grabbed Kirk by the shirt of her uniform only to slam her back down. Fists and elbows pummeled into her, knocking her around like a rag doll. She could barely get any hits in, and they were completely ineffectual.  
  
And then Nero was pinning her down, choking her.  
  
“James T. Kirk was considered to be a great man,” he said, teeth gritted as he squeezed the life out of her. “He went on to captain the USS Enterprise. But that was another life. A life I will deprive you of, just like I did your father.”  
  
_What if she failed?_  
  
And then someone was talking and the hands around her throat left her but another Romulan with a gun was standing there, ready to take Nero’s place.  
  
Jim jumped off the walkway to another, lower one, barely catching hold of it with her arms. The Romulan landed with military precision on his feet before her, like a cat.  
  
He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up with one hand.  
  
“Your species is even weaker than I expected,” he said.  
  
“I—can’t—“  
  
“Can’t what?” he taunted. “You can’t even speak.”  
  
“—I’ve got your gun.”  
  
She shot him in the gut, and his body fell off the walkway, tumbling down through the interior of the ship.

* * *

“Open a channel.”  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
“Spock,” Nero said. “I knew I should have killed you when I had the chance.”  
  
“I hereby confiscate this illegally obtained ship and order you to surrender your vessel,” Spock said calmly.  
  
“No terms. No deals. Take that ship out!” he yelled to his crew.  
  
“Sir, if you ignite the red matter, you’ll destroy—“  
  
“I want Spock dead now!”  
  
“He went to warp, sir.”  
  
“Go after him!”  
  
Spock popped out of warp and twirled xyr ship around elegantly so as to face the Narada directly when it followed.  
  
Xe set a collision course.  
  
Jim would be mad. And then she would mourn xem. It was better this way, better that xe died without her knowing. She would feel less guilt then. The last thing Spock wanted was to cause Jim pain.  
  
Every missile the Narada had fired at xyr ship all at once.  
  
“Incoming missiles. If the ship is hit, the red matter will be ignited,” the computer announced.  
  
“Understood,” Spock said. Xe maintained xyr course.  
  
And then the Enterprise showed up and blasted every one of those missiles out of the sky.  
  
They beamed Spock out at the last second. Xe arrived on the transporter pad along with Kirk, supporting Captain Pike.  
  
Xe lived.

* * *

“This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Your ship is compromised. Too close to the singularity to survive without assistance, which we are willing to provide.”  
  
Spock turned around so xyr lips could not be read. “Captain, what are you doing?” xe whispered.  
  
“Showing them compassion may be the only way to win peace with Romulus. It’s logical, Spock. I thought you’d like that.”  
  
“No, not really. Not this time.”  
  
“I would rather suffer the end of Romulus a thousand times. I would rather die in agony than accept assistance from you.”  
  
Jim smirked. “You got it.”  
  
One agonizing death coming up.  
  
“Arm phasers. Fire everything we’ve got,” she said, returning to the chair.


	11. Gary Mitchell

“You were gonna crash that ship,” Jim said brokenly back in her dorm later. “You were gonna fly straight into the Narada with yourself still in the ship.”  
  
There was no use denying it. “Yes.”  
  
“Why didn’t you request a beam out? The Enterprise was right there.”  
  
“It did not occur to me.”  
  
“Spock, _everything_ occurs to you. You think of every possible outcome. You always do,” she said. “Do you—do you need to see a counselor?”  
  
Xe shook xyr head. “A human therapist would be useless in dealing with a Vulcan, and there is currently a great need for the few Vulcan mind healers that remain. I will not divert their efforts.”  
  
“Spock—“  
  
“It was a momentary lapse,” xe said. “I had just lost my planet and my mother to a madman, Jim. I was emotionally compromised.”  
  
“Are you still?”  
  
“Negative.”  
  
“Would you promise to tell me if you were?”  
  
“Of course, Jim. Anything.”  
  
She swallowed. “Okay. Can I hug you?”  
  
“Affirmative.”  
  
She wrapped her arms around xem and held on tight, knowing her emotions were slipping through and not caring. Spock needed to know how much she cared. How much she feared losing xem. How seeing Spock almost do a repeat of what her father had done had almost killed a little part of her inside.  
  
Wet tears dripped onto Spock’s uniform shoulder and neither of them cared.

* * *

“This assembly calls Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Your inspirational valor and supreme dedication to your comrades is in keeping with the highest traditions of service, and reflect utmost credit to yourself, your crew, and the Federation. It is my honor to award you with this commendation.”  
  
A medal was presented and clipped onto her uniform.  
  
“By Starfleet Order 28455, you are hereby directed to report to Admiral Pike, USS Enterprise, for duty as his relief.”  
  
She shook the assembly president’s hand and walked over to Pike in his wheelchair.  
  
“I relieve you, sir,” she said.  
  
“I am relieved.” He smiled.  
  
“Thank you, sir.”  
  
“Congratulations, Captain.” He shook her hand firmly. “Your father would be proud.”

* * *

Spock walked onto the bridge as they were literally about to take off.  
  
Xe had put off this decision until the absolute last second. Jim had assured xem over and over that xe wasn’t obligated to keep xyr promise to go with her. The situation was different now. There was a colony that needed building.  
  
But in the end, Spock had done what xyr mother would have advised and went with what felt right.  
  
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” xe asked.  
  
“Permission granted,” she said. She couldn’t stop grinning.  
  
“As you have yet to select a First Officer, respectfully I would like to submit my candidacy. Should you desire, I can provide character references.”  
  
Character references. _Character references._  
  
“It would be my honor, Commander.”

* * *

The destruction of Vulcan was unexpected, to say the least.  
  
It was a divergence from the prophecy.  
  
It wasn’t that Kirk had been expected to save Vulcan. They had never expected to need to in the first place. It was _Vulcan_ , for crying out loud. They had certainly proved they could take care of themselves. Jim was supposed to be the savior of _Earth_.  
  
But now Vulcan was gone and Spock was a member of an endangered species and Jim was determined to do whatever was fucking necessary to keep xem safe—from the media, from poachers, from particularly insensitive xenophobic asshats, from whatever came up.  
  
She was so glad they were off planet now. It meant they couldn’t be hounded by the public or by news crews. The only other people they had to worry about were their own crew, and Jim had been allowed to have first choice of any cadets she wanted, so she went out of her way to pick people who weren’t massive dicks at the Academy.  
  
Of course, she didn’t pick every single crew member. There were 432 of them, after all. But she picked the department heads and approved their choices for their immediate subordinates. And then she had faith that the people lower down in rank wouldn’t have been picked for the flagship unless they were damn good at their job.  
  
Which was how she didn’t realize Gary Mitchell was part of her crew until she passed him in the corridors one day and actually gasped.  
  
“Jim,” he said. “Or is it Jamie now? I haven’t really been keeping up with the news on you.”  
  
“It’s Jim,” she said numbly. He looked the same. Sure, it had been thirteen years and he had obviously grown up, but still, it was the same old Gary.  
  
“It’s good to see you again,” he said.  
  
She had no response. She snapped her mouth shut and kept walking.

* * *

“Your move, Captain,” Spock said, as Jim appeared thoroughly distracted from their game of chess, thinking about the mission at hand.  
  
“We should’ve intercepted them by now. The bridge said they’d call,” she murmured, checking her comm for the umpteenth time, not that she could have possibly missed a message with how focused she was on it.  
  
“I’ll have you checkmated at your next move,” Spock prompted again. Jim turned to xem and laughed at the blatant ploy for attention.  
  
She supposed she had been ignoring her friend.  
  
“Have I ever mentioned you play a very irritating game of chess, Mx. Spock?” she teased.  
  
“Vulcans do not feel irritation,” xe replied primly.  
  
Jim made her move and suddenly checkmate was nowhere in sight—Spock’s entire perfectly logical, perfectly obvious strategy destroyed with a single move. Xe was visibly shocked, and fuck, even if Jim lost the game, she was going to count that as a victory.  
  
“You sure?” she asked.

* * *

Gary was a gamma shift navigator on the bridge. When a strange ancient probe was found, Jim summoned all the department heads to the bridge, and he (badly) flirted with Dr. Dehner, the on-board psychiatrist. When she rejected him, he called her a frigid bitch under his breath.  
  
He was damn lucky Jim didn’t hear that.  
  
Then they crossed the edge of the galaxy and Gary was… affected. His eyes shown white and reflective, like they had mirrors in them, like the multi-faceted lenses of an insect.  
  
Jim visited him in sickbay. His back was turned when she walked into the room.  
  
“Hello Jim,” he said, and then turned to face her. “Hey, you look worried. I’m not dying, am I?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” she said. Not unless he gave her a reason to kill him. “Do you feel any different?”  
  
“Honestly? I feel better than I ever have before in my life. It actually seems to have done me some good.”  
  
“How?”  
  
“Well, I’m getting a chance to read some of that longhair stuff you like,” he chuckled. “Hey, man, I remember you back at the Academy. A stack of books with legs. The first thing I ever heard from an upperclassman was ‘Watch out for Assistant Professor Kirk. In her class, you either think or sink.’”  
  
“Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad,” she said. It was so easy to slip into that old camaraderie and friendship they used to share, even if it had ended badly and been formed under false pretenses.  
  
Jim should probably be more concerned about that. But looking at her old friend in a biobed, weak despite his words and infected with _something…_  
  
“If I hadn’t aimed that little blonde lab technician at you—“  
  
“You what? Y-You planned that?”  
  
“Well, you wanted me to think, didn’t you?” he grinned. “I outlined her whole campaign for her.”  
  
“I almost married her!”  
  
“You better be good to me,” Gary said slyly. “I’m getting even better ideas here.”

* * *

It was weird killing him.  
  
She hadn’t had a choice. She’d had to do it. To save her crew. To save everybody.  
  
That was always what her job boiled down to.  
  
She still went to Bones that night to get drunk on crappy synth beer. He obliged her sympathetically, and they camped out in his office.  
  
She took a long drink. “I didn’t even like the guy.”  
  
“He used to be your friend. Even if he ended up being a shithead, at one point you must have liked the guy for some reason, and your mind still remembers that. ‘S natural.”

“It’s stupid,” she said. “You know he arranged for Ruth to date me just to pass a class?”

“What?”  
  
“Yeah. He came up with this whole plan for her on how to seduce me. Like it was a game,” she said. “Maybe it was to them.”  
  
“Hey. Ruth loved you.”  
  
She scoffed.  
  
“I’m serious. She may not have been as invested as you were or as you thought she was, but you don’t stick out a relationship for a whole year just for the photo op.”  
  
“I think you underestimate how asshole-ish people can be,” she said, taking another drink. “You know Gary was my first kiss?”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Seriously? How? Oh wait, yeah, the news.” She rolled her eyes.  
  
“It’ll get better, kid,” Bones assured. “You’re away from all of that now. You can breathe.”  
  
She nodded. “God I hope so.”

* * *

They were tasked with inspecting the scene of where the Narada had first popped into their universe, where the initial wormhole had been created. Around it were actual, physical ripples in the fabric of space-time.  
  
They caused a hell of a lot of turbulence.  
  
McCoy injected himself with codruzine. He stole a shuttle and headed straight for the temporal scar of the wormhole.  
  
“Fuck!” Jim yelled. “Spock, with me!”  
  
They boarded the Galileo and sped off after him, both racing to the remnant wormhole.  
  
“Activate tractor beams,” Jim commanded.  
  
“Aye, Captain.”  
  
McCoy’s shuttle began to slow, and Jim amped up their own acceleration, bringing the two ships closer together, close enough to—  
  
The wormhole opened up suddenly and swallowed them whole.

* * *

The two shuttles collided, twirling, spinning out of control and falling through the air. They crashed heavily into the ground and all but crushed themselves in the process.  
  
“Spock,” Jim said. “Spock!”  
  
“I am adequate, Captain,” xe said. Jim quickly undid her seatbelts and went to check for herself.  
  
“Your head is bleeding,” she said.  
  
“A superficial wound,” xe said. “And yourself?”

“I’m fine. A little banged up, but nothing worse than a couple of bruises. Let’s go check on Bones.”  
  
They pried open the shuttle doors with the manual override and stepped outside. They were in the center of a wheat field. It was sunny out, felt like summer. _Was_ summer.  
  
They caught sight of McCoy sprinting into a house at the edge of the field, too far away to get to, and heard a woman’s shriek of terror.  
  
“Shit,” Jim said. “She’ll call the cops for sure. Quick, duck in the wheat. We need to hide.”  
  
They stayed like that for 12.03 minutes, upon which time the police came and escorted McCoy away in cuffs, ranting and raving.  
  
Human police. Actual, real people in police uniforms. Something that hadn’t been seen since the first half of the twenty-first century, following the mass protests arguing for reform against brutality and profiling.  
  
“Shit,” Jim hissed again.

* * *

They waited until the commotion died down and night fell to begin moving in earnest. They walked along the side of the road, intending to keep going until they found a town, which hopefully wouldn’t be too many miles out.  
  
Spock was shivering and trying to hide it. Jim’s legs were starting to get cold in her skirt too, but it was mostly tolerable and nothing bad.  
  
“First order of business is to get us some clothes,” she said. “I don’t know what year we got flung into, but it has to be before 2050, and so that means it’s before Starfleet too. We can’t go around looking like military operatives from some unrecognizable country.”  
  
“Agreed,” Spock said. “In addition, as we are on Earth before first contact has been made, the Prime Directive applies here and so I must disguise myself as a human.”  
  
“You _are_ a human.”  
  
“A full human,” xe said. “I believe my ears may draw unnecessary attention to us.”  
  
“If we cover your ears and eyebrows, then we should be good. Your coloring isn’t that different. You just look like a sort of sickly human.”  
  
Spock raised an eyebrow.  
  
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” Jim said quickly. “I don’t think your being Vulcan makes you look less attractive than if you were a human. I’m not xenophobic or anything. I think you’re totally hot. Wait, no, that’s not good either. Um. You’re… average. Shit, I didn’t mean—“  
  
“Cease talking.”  
  
“No, I can fix this if I just—“  
  
“ _Cease talking_.” Spock crouched low in a roadside ditch and Jim mirrored xem. They sat still and silent for three minutes until a motorcycle passed, blowing noxious exhaust in their faces. Jim had a coughing fit as soon as it was out of earshot.  
  
“Yeah, definitely twenty-first century or earlier,” Jim said, wheezing. “Great.”


	12. The City on the Edge of Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I accidentally posted this chapter to the wrong fic? Whoops. Anyway the premise is taken extremely loosely from the tos episode by the same name and the first town they’re in is based off the place I live at

They finally reached a town just before dawn. The place was small, but maybe more moderate by the standards of the era. It had a convenience store, a gas station, a bar, a pizza shop, three churches, and a couple of local government facilities. There was no school, Jim noticed.  
  
What the hell did they do with no school?  
  
There also wasn’t a water tower.  
  
There was literally no place in the entire town for them to go to before eight a.m. No buildings, anyway.  
  
They found a very sad park and sat on the swings.  
  
“What is the purpose of this contraption?” Spock asked.  
  
“To swing,” Jim said. She demonstrated. “See, you kick your legs, and then it’s sorta like you’re flying.”  
  
“It is remarkably unlike flying.”  
  
“Try it. It’s fun.”  
  
Spock swung. Jim burst out laughing at the dead-serious expression on xyr face while xe tried out human playground equipment.  
  
“Why do humans swing? Is it for exercise?”  
  
“No, it’s mainly for fun. Children like it.”  
  
“Adults do not?”  
  
“No, they do, trust me. They just pretend they don’t.”  
  
“Why do you not?”  
  
“’Cuz growing up is for schmucks.” She kicked her legs faster, pushing herself higher.  
  
“Ah,” Spock said, accepting her answer. Xe continued to swing.

* * *

Jim and Spock walked into the convenience store. Jim went straight to the counter and smiled politely at the clerk.  
  
“Hi, we were wondering if this store sold any clothes?” she asked.  
  
“No, sorry,” he said apologetically.  
  
“Okay, um. Can you tell us where the bus stop is?”  
  
“This town doesn’t have a bus stop.”  
  
“What about other public transportation?”  
  
“There ain’t any. Everybody has their own cars.”  
  
“Can we rent a car?”  
  
The clerk tilted his head and inspected them. “Sure, I’ll let you borrow mine. How much money you got?”  
  
“Oh, um, we don’t have any money.”  
  
“Then I can’t help you.”  
  
“Wait! What if—what if I did something else to pay you back?” Jim asked, biting her lip. Spock watched in horror.

* * *

“Sex first. Then keys,” the clerk said, leading them out back behind the store where a few trucks were parked. He eyed Spock. “Your friend gonna watch?”  
  
Spock stiffened. “I will ensure Jim’s safety.”  
  
“Hey, if we’re gonna do this, I’m gonna need proof that you actually have keys to one of these cars first,” Jim said, hands on her hips.  
  
“Sure,” the clerk said, and fished them out of his pocket. Spock nerve-pinched him and grabbed the keys, tossing them to Jim.  
  
And then they went through the arduous process of trying every single key into every single car, before they got the very last pick-up truck to start. Of course.  
  
“Do you know how to drive one of these vehicles?” Spock asked warily.  
  
“Sure. I’ve done it before.”  
  
“When could you possibly have had the opportunity—“  
  
“Shhh. Just trust me and let me drive.” She revved the engine and slammed on the gas. Spock fumbled for xyr seatbelt and strapped it on. Xyr nails had a death grip on the edge of the seat so tight they actually broke through, leaving crescent-shaped cuts.  
  
Jim howled with laughter and excitement and veered out onto the freeway, leaving skid marks in their wake.

* * *

They found a real town, one that fucking functioned as a place to live.  
  
They had to ditch the car because it was definitely reported stolen by now. And by ‘ditch,’ they meant sell to a shady guy in a Walmart parking lot for a thousand bucks. He seemed ecstatic. It was probably a terrible deal on their part.  
  
They bought clothes.  
  
And it wasn’t that Jim treated Spock as her own personal doll but she was the only Terran here and she did know the most about Earth’s history and culture, so it made sense for her to choose xyr clothes.  
  
Besides, if left to xyr own devices, Spock would just choose baggy sweaters in mute, depressing colors and a bandana or sombrero or something. So it was fucking necessary that Jim outfitted xem in black skinny jeans, a beanie, and a leather jacket.  
  
“Do I appear adequately Terran now?” xe asked.  
  
“Yeah, Spock, you look great,” she said honestly.  
  
She chose actual, real jeans for herself and a shirt that she’ll admit, was fairly low cut. Then she added a giant floppy white sunhat in order to detract attention from Spock and the fact that xe was not at all dressed for the weather—at least by human standards.  
  
They both drew quite a bit of attention.  
  
They went to the library and began their research. They would break Bones out of the mental institution he was no doubt being held in later. For now, he was safe, sheltered, and being fed three square meals a day, which was better off than they were.  
  
A much more pressing concern at the moment was figuring out how to travel back in time. Forward in time. But back to where they were earlier.  
  
“I believe I have come up with a theory,” Spock said.  
  
“Lay it on me.”  
  
Xe rose an eyebrow. “The wormhole is essentially a door in space-time. One can travel through it from either direction. Theoretically, all we need to do is fly back up to it.”  
  
“But the shuttles are broken.”  
  
“Indeed. We must repair one of them.”  
  
“So, wait. There’s just a wormhole floating up above Earth where any old airplane could fly straight into it?”  
  
“It is a significant distance away from Earth’s orbit, farther off than the moon. It is unlikely that humans will encounter it by accident.”  
  
“What about in the future, when we start flying around out there? Did the Narada just essentially create a Bermuda Triangle in space?”  
  
“The wormhole acts as a doorway not only in space, but also in time. It is possible that it opens to many places and many eras, and this is just one of its many exits. You must think of it in four-dimensional terms. Its exits can be measured in latitude, longitude, altitude, and temporal placement.”  
  
“So there’s one exit here, above Earth in whatever year this is, and another exit at coordinate 65.92.15 stardate 2255.83.”  
  
“Correct.”  
  
“And possibly infinite other exits and doorways. Is it possible to get lost in a wormhole? If we fly back up there, will we actually be able to find our way back home?”  
  
“It’s possible,” Spock said. “There might not be that many exits. It is possible there is only the two.”  
  
“If we’re lucky,” Jim said.  
  
“If we’re lucky,” xe agreed.

* * *

They drove the half-hour ride to get back to the site of the shuttle crash, and thanked their lucky stars that it was mostly hidden by a hill. They had bought what supplies they could from car repair shops and electronics stores. It was nowhere close to what they needed, but it would have to do.  
  
They set to work.  
  
Bones’ shuttle was the least broken somehow—which was more of a testament to pure blind luck than Jim’s shuttle driving capabilities—so that was the one they decided to repair. Its hull was crumpled on the nose, and the viewscreen and inner consoles were pretty badly shattered. Fortunately, the viewscreen wasn’t exactly a necessity per se as long as they got the scanners and stuff working.  
  
The consoles, however, were going to be a bigger problem. It was lucky that both of them were certified computers experts, because getting those things working again was going to take longer than anything else they had to do, in addition to being the most complicated and delicate task. They ended up asking each other a lot of questions and working together more often than separately.  
  
Eventually Jim started yawning and Spock insisted they stop for the night and pick up again tomorrow. They curled up on the cramped metal floor of the shuttle and tried to drift off.

* * *

Jim woke up with Spock wrapped all over her like an especially cuddly blanket. Or an octopus. She smiled and turned into the hug. Poor Vulcan was probably cold, and Jim had always been told she was practically a living heater, especially at night.  
  
Spock nuzzled xyr head down into her neck and a deep rumbling sound emanated from xyr chest. Was th—Was Spock purring? Oh my god. This was so great. She was going to make xem purr all the time now. This was officially her new ace in the hole.  
  
She resolved to make xem purr even louder and shifted so that she could rub xyr back in soothing circles. Spock snuggled closer, the rumbling purr a loud, deep vibration against Jim’s chest. She smiled and planted a kiss on top of xyr forehead.  
  
Spock’s eyes blinked open slowly, sleepily. Then widened. Xe scrambled back away from Jim in an instant.  
  
“Captain. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable—“  
  
“Spock, you didn’t, sweetie, don’t worry. And I think we both know that we’re more than just captain and commander,” she said. “We’re friends.”  
  
One of Spock’s eyebrows rose. “And this is acceptable behavior in a human friendship?”  
  
“Sure. Lots of friends cuddle. I think.” She laughed just a bit awkwardly. “I have about as much experience with human friendships as you do, Spock.”  
  
Xe looked at her earnestly. “I am honored to be your friend, Jim.”  
  
“I’m honored to be your friend too,” she said quietly. The moment stretched between them, thick and pregnant and waiting. Jim cleared her throat to dispel it. “So you can purr.”  
  
“Affirmative.”  
  
“How come I’m just now finding out about this? I’ve known you for years, Spock.”  
  
“It is an autonomic response that I have no control over. It only occurs very rarely.”  
  
“Wow, you need to be happier more often. That’s a goddamn tragedy. I’m gonna make you purr like once a week from now on, and that’s at a minimum.”  
  
“That is hardly a reasonable goal.”  
  
“I’m hardly a reasonable woman,” she said. “So do Vulcans have felinoid ancestors or something?”  
  
“Affirmative.”  
  
“Do you share any other traits with cats? If I had a lazer pointer with me, could I get you to chase it?”  
  
Xe gave her a dry look. “No, Jim. In answer to your earlier question, yes. The pointed ears are a remnant of that, and Vulcans have an instinctual aversion to water, in part due to felinoid heritage and in part due to being a desert species. In addition, my tongue is rougher than that of a human.”  
  
Jim’s eyes widened and she certainly wasn’t thinking about… anything. Nope. She most definitely was not going to say ‘prove it’ or any other completely inappropriate remark. No. Spock was her friend. Her _friend_.  
  
Jim may be new to this whole friendship thing, but even she knew that friends don’t ask friends to go down on each other.  
  
Er, maybe some friends did, but not her and Spock, that’s for sure. She wasn’t going to touch that idea with a ten-foot pole.

* * *

They settled into a comfortable routine. Every morning, they woke up and worked until Jim was too exhausted to go on, and every night they curled up together and slept in a happy little bundle of warmth, Jim doing her darnedest to get Spock purring. She faced moderate success. Spock really liked cuddling, as it turned out, which Jim thought was just fucking adorable.  
  
It took a month and a half to get the shuttle repaired enough to be usable. One thousand dollars did not go nearly as far as one thousand credits would, and what with not having a stasis unit or a replicator, they ended up spending it all on pre-made, ready-to-eat food. Mostly junk food. Bones was going to kill them when they got him back.  
  
Jim was gnawing her way through a bag of beef jerky (she wasn’t going to pass up the chance to eat real, non-replicated meat while she had it) and Spock was eating some dried fruit as their very sad, very small lunch. She took a sip from a water bottle and then passed it to xem, who nodded in thanks.  
  
“So I think I’ve got a plan on how to break Bones out,” Jim said.  
  
“Indeed?”  
  
“Uh-huh. If what I remember of twenty-first century psych wards is correct, they’re gonna have pretty tight security. They aren’t just gonna let us walk out of there with a patient, even if we claim to be his family.”  
  
“So what do you propose we do?”  
  
“The direct approach. We break in, steal Bones, and break out. It’ll be easiest to get in if we’re admitted through the right channels, so I figured we’d do that.”  
  
“Jim, I cannot be admitted to a hospital. They would note my unusual physiology right away. That would be in violation of the Prime Directive.”  
  
“I know. Which is why _I’ll_ be going in, and _you’ll_ be driving the getaway car.”  
  
“We no longer own a car.”  
  
“Yeah, but getaway space shuttle doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

* * *

Jim walked up to the desk in the ER. “Hi, I’m here for a psych admission.”  
  
“Okay. Why are you admitting yourself?”  
  
She blew out a breath. “Because I genuinely believe I am a time-traveler from the year 2255 and I have to do this.”

* * *

Jim waited until the lights flicked off for the night and her roommate was asleep before slipping out of the room. She slunk down the hallway while the nurses weren’t looking, too busy chatting and laughing at their station.  
  
Bones’ room was a single and right next to the nurses’ station due to how volatile he was. Jim crept in and closed the door quietly behind her. She turned on her comm wordlessly, giving Spock a signal to lock on to.  
  
Soon, xe floated up to the window in hover boots and got out a lazer cutter to saw a human-sized hole in the window. Jim slipped a gag over Leonard’s mouth while he slept, and the man’s eyes flashed open. He began struggling and trying to yell through the gag.  
  
Spock flew elegantly through the hole in the window and nerve-pinched him. Jim helped heave his unconscious body out of the hole, where Spock held the doctor easily, waiting.  
  
Jim slipped on the extra pair of hover boots xe had brought and flew similarly out the window. Together, like fairies, they flew off towards their shuttle.  
  
“Ready for liftoff, Captain?” Spock asked.  
  
“Affirmative, Commander,” she said. “Punch it.”  
  
The shuttle slowly whirred to life, and then, in a blast, it shot off the roof of the hospital like phaser fire, faster than a bullet could ever hope to be. They zoomed through the sky and broke through the cloud cover, suddenly surrounded by blackness and stars. It wasn’t long before they broke out of the atmosphere.  
  
Spock veered off towards Earth’s moon and beyond, Jim screaming out coordinates and directions and commands and Spock complying faster than a human could even process them.  
  
They got to where the wormhole should be and there was nothing.

* * *

They stayed there waiting for eight hours before they landed to conserve fuel.  
  
Jim went up to a little kid in town and explained that she was a time traveler and needed to know the year and date. It was July 21st, 2016.  
  
“It is possible that the wormhole had exits so small they spanned mere days rather than years as we previously assumed. There is a chance that the wormhole only opened at coordinates 65.92.15 2255.83 and coordinates 12.43.92 2016.158.”  
  
“So we may have missed our only shot for the next 200 and some-odd years,” she said. “You said there’s a chance. What are the chances exactly?”  
  
“I cannot give an exact measurement, and for that I apologize, but our chances of being stranded in this time period are 57.3334%. Approximately.”  
  
“Approximately,” Jim nodded. “Those aren’t good odds, Mx. Spock. It’s just slightly worse than a fifty-fifty toss up.”  
  
“Indeed,” Spock said. “However, I have faith that you will defy the odds.”  
  
A faint smile played across her lips. “Sounds illogical.”  
  
Soft amusement and affection shone in xyr eyes. “Perhaps.”  
  
And so, for Spock, Jim defied the odds and had them all home within a week when the wormhole opened itself back up.


	13. The Wrath of Khan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some misgendering on the part of evil villains (Marcus calls Kirk son)

“Spock, I’m telling you, this is why he called. I can feel it,” Jim said, with obvious excitement.  
  
“Your feeling aside, I consider it highly unlikely that we will be selected for the new program.”  
  
“What else would Pike want to see us for? I mean, forget about experience. We’re ready. We’re the _prophesied ones_. Come on, who else are they gonna send out?”  
  
“I can think of numerous possibilities.”  
  
“A five-year mission, Spock! _The_ five-year mission,” she said. “That’s deep space! That’s uncharted territory! Think how incredible that’s gonna be.”

* * *

“’Uneventful’,” Pike said once they were standing in his office. “It’s the way you described the survey of Nibiru in your captain’s log.”  
  
“Yes, sir. I didn’t want to waste your time going over the details,” Jim said.  
  
“Tell me more about this volcano,” he said. “Data says it was highly volatile. If it were to erupt, it would wipe out the planet.”  
  
“Let’s hope it doesn’t, sir,” she said confidently.  
  
“Something tells me it won’t.”  
  
Spock snuck a glance at Jim. She wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have… _lied_ in the captain’s log?  
  
For what purpose?  
  
“Well, sir, volatile is all relative. Maybe our data was off,” Jim said.  
  
“Or maybe it didn’t erupt because Mx. Spock detonated a cold fusion device inside it right after a civilization that’s barely invented the wheel happened to see a starship rising out of their ocean. That’s pretty much how you described it, is it not?”  
  
Jim whipped her head around, jaw dropping open. “You filed a report? Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“I incorrectly assumed that you would be truthful in your captain’s log,” Spock said.  
  
“Yeah, well I would have been if I didn’t have to save your life!”  
  
“A fact for which I am immeasurably grateful and the very reason I felt it necessary to take responsibility for the actions—“  
  
Jim laughed. “Take responsibility. Yeah, that’d be so noble, pointy, if you weren’t also throwing me under the bus.”  
  
“Pointy? Is that a derogatory reference—“  
  
“People,” Pike said. “Starfleet’s mandate is to explore and observe, not to interfere.”  
  
“Had the mission gone according to plan, Admiral, the indigenous species would never have been aware of our interference.”  
  
“That’s a technicality.”  
  
“I am Vulcan, sir. We embrace technicality.”  
  
“Are you giving me attitude, Spock?”  
  
“I am expressing multiple attitudes simultaneously, sir. To which are you referring?”  
  
“Out,” he said. “You’re dismissed, Commander.”  
  
Spock spared one last look at Jim and headed for the door.  
  
Pike leaned against the edge of his desk. “You have any idea what a pain in the ass you are?”  
  
“I think so, sir,” Jim said.  
  
“So tell me what you did wrong. What’s the lesson to be learned here?”  
  
“Never trust a Vulcan.”  
  
“Now, see, you can’t even answer the question. You lied. On an official report, you lied. You think the rules don’t apply to you because you’re the great Jim Kirk.”  
  
“That’s why I’m here in the first place.”  
  
“You don’t have an ounce of humility, do you?”  
  
“What was I supposed to do, let Spock die?”  
  
“You’re missing the point.”  
  
“I don’t think I am, sir. What would you have done?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have risked my First Officer’s life in the first place!” he said. “You were supposed to survey a planet, not alter its destiny! You violated a dozen Starfleet regulations and almost got everyone under your command killed.”  
  
“Except I didn’t! You know how many crewmembers I’ve lost? Not one!”

“That’s your problem, you think you’re infallible! You think you can’t make a mistake. It’s a pattern with you! The rules are for other people.”  
  
“Some should be!”  
  
“And what’s worse is you using blind luck to justify your playing god!”  
  
“It’s not blind luck! Everybody knows it! It’s from the prophecy!”  
  
“The prophecy isn’t everything, Jim!” Pike snapped. He sighed and shook his head. “Given the circumstances, this has been brought to Admiral Marcus’s attention. He’s the one in charge of all matters related to the prophecy. He convened a special tribunal, to which I was not invited. You understand what Starfleet regulations mandate be done at this point?”  
  
Jim looked up suddenly, just a hint of fear in her clear blue eyes.  
  
“He’s taking the Enterprise away from you. You’re going to be my First Officer for a few more years, and Spock has the option to stay on as a professor at the Academy or transfer to the USS Bradbury.”  
  
“Admiral, listen—“  
  
“No! I can’t listen. You don’t comply with the rules, you don’t take responsibility for anything, and you don’t respect the chair. You know why?” he asked. “Because you’re not ready for it.”

* * *

“Captain,” Spock greeted, approaching.  
  
“Not anymore, Spock. First Officer,” Jim corrected, not slowing down in her stride even slightly. They entered the turbolift and she hit the button. “I was demoted and you were reassigned.”  
  
“It is fortunate that the consequences were not more severe,” xe said.  
  
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”  
  
“Captain, it was never my intention—“  
  
“Not Captain,” she said. “I saved your life, Spock. You wrote a report, I lost my ship.”  
  
She exited the turbolift, effectively walking away from the conversation. Spock followed after her.  
  
“Commander, I see now I should have alerted you to the fact that I submitted the report.”  
  
“No, I’m familiar with your compulsion to follow the rules. But you see, I can’t do that. Where I come from, if someone saves your life, you don’t stab them in the back.”  
  
“Vulcans cannot lie.”  
  
“Then I’m talking to the half-human part of you, alright? Do you understand why I went back for you?”  
  
Then Spock’s new captain from the Bradbury came over and introduced himself and the moment was lost.  
  
Jim sighed once he left. “Look, I know that this is just temporary, but… I’m going to miss you.”  
  
Spock’s mouth opened slightly. Jim would miss xem? For all intents and purposes, Spock had assumed xyr company was merely tolerated, mostly due to the necessity of fulfilling the prophecy, and Jim did not even intend to fully do that. No, Spock had long since resigned xemself to sitting back and watching while xyr t’hy’la paraded a string of casual lovers in front of xem, none of whom gave Jim the depth of love she seemed crave, the love that Spock would so freely give.  
  
Jim rolled her eyes and stalked off, annoyed at Spock’s lack of response, leaving the Vulcan still standing there, processing. “Buffering,” as Jim called it, something that Spock actively tried to discourage as it encouraged the doctor to more frequently compare xem to a computer.  
  
They took their seats and the meeting began.

* * *

Spock saw the moment the fatal blast hit Pike and xe rushed over and carried him away to safety. Blood was trickling out of his mouth, and his eyes were unfocused, unseeing.  
  
The man sucked in shuddering, shaky breaths, and looked up at Spock with tears in his eyes. Spock gently touched xyr fingers to his meld points.  
  
Pain. Pain, so much pain. Fear and anger and emotions so potent and confusing, human emotions that burned hot and fast and shallow, uncontrollable and rioting. Chaos. Mental cacophony. Sheer and striking loss.  
  
As the man died, Spock eased his pain.

* * *

“Status report, Mx. Spock,” Jim said, taking her seat next to xem in the shuttle.  
  
“The Enterprise should be ready for departure by the time we arrive,” xe said.  
  
“Excellent.”  
  
“Captain,” xe said. “Thank you for requesting my reinstatement.”  
  
Jim gave a soft smile. “You’re welcome.”  
  
“As I am again your First Officer, it is now my duty to strongly object to our mission parameters.”  
  
“Of course it is.”  
  
“There is no Starfleet regulation that condemns a man to die without a trial, something you and Admiral Marcus are forgetting. Also, preemptively firing torpedoes goes against—“  
  
“You yourself said the area’s uninhabited. There’s only gonna be one casualty. And in case you weren’t listening, our orders have nothing to do with Starfleet regulation.”  
  
“Wait a minute. We’re firing torpedoes at the Klingons?” Bones asked.  
  
“Regulations aside, this action is morally wrong,” Spock said.  
  
“Regulations aside, pulling your ass out of a volcano was morally right. And I didn’t win any points for that.”  
  
“Captain, our mission could start a war with the Klingons and is, by its very definition, immoral. Perhaps you should take the requisite time to arrive at this conclusion yourself.”  
  
“Captain Kirk,” a female voice said suddenly. “Science Officer Wallace. I’ve been assigned to the Enterprise by Admiral Marcus. These are my transfer orders.”  
  
“You requested an additional science officer, Captain?” Spock asked.  
  
“I wish I had,” she turned to xem with a slight smirk. She took the proffered padd and read. “Lieutenant Carol Wallace. Doctorate in applied physics specializing in advanced weaponry.”  
  
“Impressive credentials,” Spock conceded.  
  
“Thank you,” Carol said.  
  
“But redundant now that I am back aboard the Enterprise.”  
  
“And yet, the more the merrier,” Jim said, knowing full well just how jealous Spock felt at that moment. The science department was _xyrs_.  
  
Spock calculated a 74.02% chance the captain would engage in coitus with her new science officer. The new, completely redundant science officer who was not Spock and not her t’hy’la.  
  
Spock looked at Jim and wondered if she did these things on purpose. She had to. She certainly couldn’t be ignorant of Spock’s affections for her. And yet she did not desire xem. Which was understandable, acceptable, but why then did it seem like xyr captain went out of her way to torment xem? Why this constant parade of sexual conquests seemingly rubbed in xyr face?  
  
Jim said the more the merrier and Spock could not help but feel a joke was being played on xem.  
  
Carol Wallace sat down between them and Spock’s Vulcan blood burned. At least it would be temporary, xe assured xemself. She would be temporary like all of the others.

* * *

“Oh, Mx. Spock. You startled me,” Carol said.  
  
Spock stared at her harshly. “What are you doing, doctor?”

“Verifying that the torpedo’s internal—“  
  
“You misunderstand. What are you doing aboard this ship? There is no record of you being assigned to the Enterprise.”  
  
Because yes, xe had gone the extra mile and actually checked.  
  
“Really? That must be some sort of mistake,” Carol said.  
  
“My conclusion as well, Dr. Marcus,” xe said. “Except that you have lied about your identity. Wallace is the surname of your mother. I can only assume the Admiral is your father.”  
  
She stepped forward. “Mx. Spock. I’m aware I have no right to ask this of you. But please, he cannot know that I’m here—“  
  
The ship shook violently as the warp drive quit working.

* * *

“Why the hell did he surrender?” Bones asked.  
  
“I don’t know. But he just took out a squad of Klingons single-handedly. I want to know how,” Jim said.  
  
“Sounds like we have a superman on board.”  
  
“You tell me.”  
  
The three of them arrived at the designated holding cell in the brig, and McCoy stuck a circle opener thing on the glass. “Put your arm through the hole. I’m gonna take a blood sample,” he said.  
  
Harrison rolled down his sleeve and complied. “Why aren’t we moving, Captain?” he asked. “An unexpected malfunction, perhaps in your warp core, conveniently stranding you at the edge of Klingon space?”  
  
“How the hell do you know that?” McCoy asked.  
  
“Bones,” Jim warned.  
  
“I think you’d find my insight valuable, Captain,” Harrison said.  
  
McCoy finished drawing his blood and removed the circle thing. The three of them turned their backs and walked away, McCoy to sickbay in one direction and Jim and Spock to the bridge in another.  
  
“Ignore me and you will get everyone on this ship killed,” Harrison called after them.  
  
Jim stopped.  
  
“Captain, I believe he will only attempt to manipulate you,” Spock whispered. “I would not recommend engaging the prisoner further.”  
  
“Give me a minute,” she said. Spock acquiesced, leaving Jim alone in the brig. She marched back over to the holding cell.  
  
“Let me explain what’s happening here,” she said. “ _You are a criminal_. I watched you murder innocent men and women. I was authorized to _end you!_ And the only reason why you are still alive is because I am allowing it. So shut your mouth.”  
  
“Oh, Captain, are you going to punch me again over and over until your arm weakens? Clearly you want to, so tell me, why did you allow me to live?”  
  
“We all make mistakes,” she said dangerously.  
  
“No. I surrendered to you because, despite your attempt to convince me otherwise, you seem to have a conscience, Ms. Kirk. If you did not, then it would be impossible for me to convince you of the truth,” he said. “23-17-46-11. Coordinates not far from Earth. If you want to find out why I did what I did, go and take a look.”  
  
“Give me one reason why I should listen to you,” Jim said.  
  
“I can give you 72. And they’re on board your ship, Captain. They have been all along. I suggest you open one up.”

* * *

“Are you out of your corn-fed mind?” Bones asked. “You’re not actually going to listen to this guy? He killed Pike, he almost killed you, and now you think it’s a good idea to pop open a torpedo because he dared you to.”

“Why did he save our lives, Bones?” Jim asked.  
  
“The doctor does have a point, Captain,” Spock said.  
  
“Don’t agree with me, Spock. It makes me very uncomfortable,” he said.  
  
“Perhaps you too should learn to govern your emotions, doctor,” xe said. “In this situation, logic dictates—“  
  
“Logic? Oh my god! There’s a maniac trying to make us blow up our own damn ship and—“  
  
“That’s not it. I don’t know why he surrendered, but that’s not it. Look, we’re gonna open a torpedo. The question is how,” Jim said.  
  
“But Jim, without Scotty on board, who exactly is qualified to just pop open a four-ton stick of dynamite?”  
  
“The Admiral’s daughter appeared to have interest in the torpedoes and she is a weapons specialist,” Spock said. “Perhaps she could be of some use.”  
  
“What Admiral’s daughter?” Jim asked.  
  
“Carol Marcus. Your new science officer concealed her identity to board the ship.”  
  
“When were you going to tell me that?”  
  
“When it became relevant. As it just did,” Spock said innocently.

* * *

“On screen,” Jim said. “Broadcast shipwide, for the record.”  
  
Uhura pulled up the hail, and Admiral Marcus’s face appeared on the viewscreen. “Captain Kirk.”  
  
“Admiral Marcus. I wasn’t expecting you,” she said evenly. “That’s a hell of a ship you got there.”  
  
“And I wasn’t expecting to get word that you’d taken Harrison into custody in violation of your orders.”  
  
“Well, we had to improvise when our warp core unexpectedly malfunctioned. But you already knew that, didn’t you, sir?”  
  
“I don’t take your meaning.”  
  
“Well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To assist with our repairs? Why else would the head of Starfleet and keeper of the prophecy personally come to the edge of the Neutral Zone?”  
  
“Captain, they’re scanning our ship,” Sulu said.  
  
“Is there something I can help you find, sir?” Jim asked.  
  
“Where is your prisoner, Kirk?”  
  
“Per Starfleet regulation, I’m planning on returning Khan to Earth to stand trial.”  
  
“Well, shit.” Marcus rubbed his brow. “You talked to him. This is exactly what I was hoping to spare you from. I took a tactical risk and I woke that bastard up, believing that his superior intelligence could help us protect ourselves from whatever came at us next.” He leaned forward. “But I made a mistake. And now the blood of everybody he’s killed is on my hands. So I’m asking you, give him to me so I can end what I started.”  
  
“And what exactly would you like me to do with the rest of his crew, sir? Fire them at the Klingons? End 72 lives? Start a war in the process?”  
  
“He put those people in those torpedoes.”  
  
That sounded dangerously close to being a yes.  
  
“And I simply didn’t want to burden you with knowing what was inside of them. You saw what this man can do all by himself. Can you imagine what would happen if we woke up the rest of his crew? What else did he tell you, that he’s a peacekeeper? He’s playing you, son, don’t you see that? Khan and his crew were condemned to death as war criminals. And it is now our duty to carry out that sentence before anyone else dies because of him. Now, I’m going to ask you again. One last time, son. Lower your shields. Tell me where he is.”  
  
“He’s in engineering,” Jim said. “But I’ll have him moved to the transporter room right away.”  
  
“I’ll take it from here,” Marcus said. The transmission ended.  
  
“Do not drop those shields, Mr. Sulu,” she said, making her way to the turbolift. Spock followed her.  
  
“Captain, given your knowledge of Khan’s true location in the medbay, may I know the details of your plan?” Spock asked.  
  
“I told Marcus we were bringing a fugitive back to Earth. That’s what we’re going to do.”

* * *

“Sir, it’s me, it’s Carol,” she said when the hail opened.  
  
The firing stopped.  
  
“What are you doing on that ship?” the admiral asked.  
  
“I heard what you said. That you made a mistake and now you’re doing everything you can to fix it. But Dad… I don’t believe that the man who raised me is capable of destroying a ship full of innocent people. And, if I’m wrong about that, then you’re going to have to do it with me on board.”  
  
“Actually, Carol, I won’t.”  
  
Swirling light encased the weapons specialist and she tried to run from it, futilely, screaming at the end as she disappeared.  
  
“Captain Kirk, without authorization and in league with the fugitive John Harrison, you went rogue into enemy territory with intent to break the prophecy and start a war, leaving me no choice but to hunt you down and destroy you. Lock phasers.”  
  
“Wait, sir, wait wait wait!”  
  
“I’ll make this quick. Target all aft torpedoes on the Enterprise bridge.”  
  
“Sir, my crew was just… was just following my orders. I take full responsibility for my actions. But they were mine and they were mine alone. If I transmit Khan’s location to you now, all I ask is that you spare them,” she said. “Please, sir. I’ll do anything you want. Just let them live.”  
  
“That’s a hell of an apology. But if it’s any consolation, I was never going to spare your crew.”  
  
The transmission ended. Dead silence. The calm before the storm.  
  
Jim turned around to face her bridge crew, to face the music. “I’m sorry.”  
  
And then the other ship’s weapons powered down and Scotty commed them and Jim had never been so euphoric in her life, nearly crying in sheer relief and happiness.  
  
“Spock, our ship, how is she?” Jim asked, running over to her command partner.  
  
“Our options are limited, Captain. We cannot fire and we cannot flee,” xe said.  
  
Jim thought. Nodded to herself. “There is one option. Uhura, when you get Scotty back, patch him through. Mx. Spock, you have the conn.”  
  
Spock did not take the conn. Xe followed Jim into the turbolift. “Captain, I strongly object.”  
  
“To what? I haven’t said anything yet.”  
  
“Since we cannot take the ship from the outside, the only way to take it is from within. And as a large boarding party would be detected, it is optimal for you to take as few crew members as possible. You will meet resistance, requiring personnel with advanced combat capabilities and innate knowledge of the ship. This indicates that you plan to align with Khan, the very man we were sent here to destroy.”  
  
“I’m not aligning with him, I’m using him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  
  
“An Arabic proverb attributed to a prince who was betrayed and decapitated by his own subjects.”  
  
“Still, it’s a hell of a quote.”  
  
“I will go with you, Captain.”  
  
“No, one of us needs to stay on the bridge.”  
  
Spock grabbed her shoulder to stop her walking and force her to face xem. “I cannot allow you to do this. Let me go in your place. I would be better equipped to deal with Khan, and the Enterprise needs you.”  
  
“I’m not going to risk your life like that, Spock.”  
  
“This is not the same as Nibiru. I am the most logical choice.”  
  
“Yeah, well you were the most logical choice for that mission too, and you almost died. Logical doesn’t always equal right.”  
  
“I must disagree.”  
  
“Of course,” Jim nodded and turned to continue on her path.  
  
“Captain, I am sorry.”  
  
“Sorry for wha—“  
  
Spock neck-pinched her and caught her before she could hit the floor, carrying her the rest of the way to sickbay, to McCoy and to Khan.

* * *

Jim stormed onto the bridge, the picture of fury.  
  
“Where the hell is Spock?” she asked.  
  
Sulu had just answered the hail at that precise second, and Spock was marched in front of the viewscreen, held in place by Khan and with a phaser against xyr throat.  
  
“Spock,” Jim breathed.  
  
“I’m going to make this very simple for you. Your crew for my crew,” Khan said.  
  
“You fucking traitor!”  
  
“What a brilliant deduction, Ms. Kirk.”  
  
“Captain, do not—“ Spock started, and was cut off by xyr own scream when Khan bashed xyr head in with the butt of the phaser. Xe fell to the floor, unconscious.  
  
Jim took a step forward on automatic, as if she could step through the screen itself to help.  
  
“Ms. Kirk, give me my crew.”  
  
“Why? So you can try and take over the world with them?”  
  
“Shall I destroy you, Ms. Kirk? Or will you give me what I want?”  
  
“Can’t. Transporter’s broke.”  
  
“Fortunately, mine is still functional. Drop your shields.”  
  
She folded her arms. “How do I know you won’t just kill us all then?”  
  
“You do not. However, if you fail to comply, I will kill your precious t’hy’la to demonstrate my resolve. Then, if yours holds, I will have no choice but to kill you and your entire crew.”  
  
“Dumbass, if you blow us up, you blow up your own people too. Or did that thought not occur to you?”  
  
“Your crew requires oxygen to survive, mine does not. I will target your life support systems located behind the aft nacelle. And after every single person aboard your ship suffocates, I will walk over your cold corpses to recover my people. Now. Shall we begin?”  
  
Kirk glared. “Lower shields,” she said.  
  
“A wise choice, Ms. Kirk.” He punctuated the statement with a harsh kick to Spock’s stomach, who had just been recovering. Jim was seeing red, but her thoughts were crystal clear, the plan laid out elegantly in her head. She knew exactly how to beat him. He had all but given them the key too, and didn’t that just make it delicious?

* * *

Khan beamed their away team straight into his old holding cell in the brig.  
  
And then he started firing.  
  
“Everybody brace yourselves!” Jim yelled over the intercom. The ship was rocked by the nearby explosion of 72 photon torpedoes going off all at once.  
  
And then the Enterprise’s electricity flickered and went out.  
  
“Ma’am, the central power grid is failing!”  
  
“Switch to auxiliary power.”  
  
“Auxiliary power failing, ma’am.”  
  
“Captain, we’re being pulled in by Earth’s gravity,” Sulu announced.  
  
“Can we stop?”  
  
“I can’t do anything.”  
  
“Sound evacuation, all decks.”  
  
“Aye, ma’am.”  
  
“Abandon ship,” she said, and it was only slightly brokenly. She pressed the button to snap on her magnetic seatbelts. “I’ll stay and divert power to life support and the shuttle bays.”  
  
Nobody moved.  
  
“People, the prophecy isn’t a guarantee. Just because I’m on board doesn’t mean you’ll all survive. It doesn’t even mean _I’ll_ survive. This is an alternate universe!” she said. “Everybody who wants to leave better get out now. Don’t try to be heroes.”  
  
“All due respect, Captain, but we’re not going anywhere,” Sulu said.

* * *

“Even if we get the warp core online, we’ve still got to redirect the power!” Scotty said, as he, Chekov, and Spock raced through engineering. “Someone has to hit the manual override.”  
  
Spock looked between them and the moment stretched. Snapped.  
  
“No, Spock. I cannae let you do this,” Scotty said. “No human can withstand the radiation that’s in there.”  
  
“Fortuitously, I am not human,” xe said.  
  
Chekov looked up at xem with big pleading eyes. “Please do not go in there, Commander.”  
  
Spock nodded. “It is possible that you two have a point.”  
  
Xe neck-pinched both of them.

* * *

Jim rushed down to the warp core chamber. Scotty and Bones both grabbed her by the arms.  
  
“You can’t open that door! You’ll flood the whole compartment!” Scotty said.  
  
“Xe’ll die,” she said, eyes fixed firmly on her t’hy’la.  
  
“Xe’s dead already,” Bones said. “It’s too late.”  
  
Jim looked between the two of them hopelessly, and slowly the fight drained out of her. They relaxed their grip, releasing her, and she approached the chamber and knelt down.  
  
“Spock,” she choked on a sob.  
  
“The ship,” xe said. “Out of danger?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Don’t grieve, Captain. It is not logical,” xe said. “The needs of the many outweigh…” Xe couldn’t seem to continue.  
  
“The needs of the few,” Jim finished.  
  
“Or the one,” xe said. “I never took… the Kobayashi Maru test. Until now. What do you think of my solution?”  
  
“Spock…”  
  
“I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” Xe pressed a ta’al against the glass. ”Live long and prosper.”  
  
Jim met xyr hand in a matching ta’al and held it there until Spock’s slipped down and the life slipped out of xem.


End file.
